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Lot 95

INDIA
LOCKHART (WILLIAM STEPHEN ALEXANDER) and ROBERT GOSSET WOODTHORPE. The Gilgit Mission, 1885-86, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1889

29 March 2023, 13:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £637.50 inc. premium

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INDIA

LOCKHART (WILLIAM STEPHEN ALEXANDER) and ROBERT GOSSET WOODTHORPE. The Gilgit Mission, 1885-86, numerous photographic plates, 2 folding maps in pocket at end (seemingly lacking a third map present with the Wellcome copy), stamped 'Strictly Confidential' in red on title-page and on reverse of maps, India Office label on front paste-down, some foxing, publisher's cloth, soiled, shaken and worn, spine with hole and ends frayed, 4to, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1889

Footnotes

Rare report of the successful exploratory mission of 1885, headed by Sir William Alexander Lockhart, which set out to survey the Hindu Kush ranges and cultivate friendly relations between the Mehtar of Chitral and the Government of India. Copies were marked 'Strictly Confidential' and distributed to relevant government departments and officials. Unsurprisingly none are listed as having been offered at auction.

Provenance: Henry Fowle, 1st Viscount Wolverhampton (1830-1911, politician, Secretary of State for India from 1894 to 1895); acquired on his death in 1911 by the bookseller H. Start of Wolverhampton, and sold the same year to Arthur Campbell Yate (1853-1929, soldier in the Indian Army, writer and authority on the Afghan War), his ink provenance notes (on leaf following title and India Office label) and bookplate; subsequently presumed presented or returned to the British Council in London; loaned in 1960 for an exhibition ('Books for a study of Pakistan') at the British Council Library in Peshawar, Pakistan, ink stamp on title-page and loosely inserted internal correspondence chitty returning the book by diplomatic bag to London, and noting its sensitive content ("This book was requested by the U.S.S.R. Embasssy, who wanted to microfilm it... We think looking through the book that it would be advisable not to keep the book in this country, since it would seem to be as confidential now as when it was first published".

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