Author: The Rajah of Kolhapoor.
Title: Diary of the Late Rajah of Kolhapoor, during his visit to Europe in 1870. Edited by Capt. Edward W. West.
Description: London, Smith Elder 1872. Octavo green morocco by Mansell, elaborately decorated, with the arms of the Maharaja on the front cover; chromolitho portrait, a mounted litho portrait and a mounted woodbury type. Some scattered spots; a handsome, fresh copy. With a printed presentation leaf finished by hand presenting the book to Saville Lumley - John Savile Lumley the diplomat, not the younger illustrator. ¶ The special presentation issue of a book that was doubtless a privately funded production in the first place; the uncoloured litho portrait doesn't seem to be included in the more prosaic issue. Upon the Raja's succession in 1866, at the age of 16, West was appointed his governor and the first thing he did was remove him from the "pernicious moral atmosphere ever to be found in a native Palace." His education then seems to consist of learning billiards, croquet and a bit of cricket; he was given "selections of books" and encouraged to read newspapers. Thus prepared they set off to see England, the first reigning Hindu prince to do so, in 1870. Having conquered England, socially, he died in Florence and, after some fast politicking to sidestep Florentine law, was cremated on the banks of the Arno. The woodburytype is a portrait of a splendidly befrocked but anxious looking child, his eight year old successor.

Keywords: travel Asia India England Europe c19th social history association