Goa, and the Blue Mountains; 1851, First Ed.

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Details

Authors: Richard F. Burton
Size(WxDXH): 5 x 1.4 x 7.5 inches
Medium: Antiquarian Book
Year: 1851
Edition: First Edition

Description

First Edition of ‘Goa, And The Blue Mountains or six months of sick leave’ by Richard F. Burton, Lieutenant, Bombay Army. Published in London, by Richard Bentley, new Burlington Street in 1851. With folding engraved map and 4 sepia lithographed views. Richard F. Burton was a noted nineteenth-century British explorer, best known for discovering the source of the Nile.

Background History:
“Published in 1851, this is the first book written by the famed Victorian explorer Richard F. Burton. It is an account of his journey through portions of southwest India while he was on sick leave from the British Indian army. Traveling through Bombay to the Portuguese colony of Goa, he went through Calicut and other cities on the Malabar coast, ending up in the Nilgiri Mountains at the hill station of Ootacamund…”
This is …”a revealing look at the people who inhabited a part of India that was generally off the beaten track in the nineteenth century. The Portuguese and Mestizo inhabitants of Goa, the Todas of Ootacamund, as well as the fellow Britons Burton meets on his journey are all subject to his penetrating scrutiny. Burton's clever, ascerbic, and unorthodox personality together with his irreverence for convention and his bemused disdain for humanity come through clearly in these pages, as does his extraordinary command of the languages and literatures of various peoples.”
“Burton mingled with everyone in India: he posed as an English gentleman looking for a wife to gain entrance into a school for girls, and attended balls at the palaces of tarnished royalty. He met an old beggar in Goa from whom he elicited the tragic story of a failed romance. When Burton offered aid to the man, he refused: death held no danger for this former soldier, and Burton was genuinely touched.”

Condition:
This book is in good condition. Ex-library. Perforated stamp of Sandeman Library Perth on all four illustrations, title page, and fist page of chapter 1. Stamp of library on verso of map. Modern calf, spine with raised bands and gilt lettered red morocco label. Short tear at foot of M5.

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