Lithographed pictorial title-page, dedication-leaf, leaf of descriptions, and 26 tinted lithographed plates; plain paper interleaves. (folio), 54x37 cm. (21¼x14½"), disbound in the original cloth covers, later cloth repair to spine.
Important and striking pictorial record of the British advance into Afghanistan in 1839 and the occupation of the Kabul, presenting to the world views of the harsh beauty of the landscape and mysterious character of its inhabitants. Atkinson, a doctor by training and an accomplished Persian scholar, had accompanied the army of the Indus on its march to Kabul and returned to Bengal in 1841 before the massacre of the army of occupation. The present copy contains 24 of the 25 numbered plates (plate 25, the portrait of Shah-Shuja, is not present) plus the listed but unnumbered plate of Caubul Costumes; additionally, it has an unnumbered and unlisted plate, "Cabul - A Kuttar or String of Blind Beggars." (This latter plate, as well as Plate 19, has the margins trimmed). Provenance: Purchased in Simla, Pakistan, around 1964 by the noted anthropologist Louis DuPrey, who conveyed it to Robert MacMakin, an American adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Education under contract with USAID, then a resident of Kabul, Afghanistan.
Condition:
Covers scuffed and worn; light to moderate foxing to plates, some darkening to edges with occasional wear, a few marginal dampstains, plate numbers penciled in margins; interleaves brittle and chipped with a few tears, the plates generally good to very good.