An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and its Dependencies, in Persia, Tartary, and India;: comprising a View of the Dooraunee Monarchy. New and Revised Edition.

London: Richard Bentley,, 1842. Popular and important study of Afghanistan Fourth edition of this superbly detailed regional study, first published in 1815, with further editions in 1816 and 1839; the fine large map, present here, being new to the 1839 edition. Publication of the third was timed to coincide with the British invasion of Afghanistan in December 1838. By 1842 the disaster had unfolded. Elphinstone stands out as one of the most remarkable figures in the establishment of British hegemony in India in the early nineteenth century. The son of the eleventh Baron Elphinstone, he went out to India in 1795 at the age of sixteen as a "writer" in the service of the East India Company. In 1801 was appointed Assistant to Sir Barry Close, Resident at the court of Baji Rao the Peshwa at Poona. The Peshwa was virtual head of the Mahratta confederacy and is described by DNB as "an avowed poltroon", he was overthrown by Yashwant Rao Holkar at the Battle of Poona. Holkar refused British requests to reinstate the Peshwa which led to the Second Mahratta War. Elphinstone was attached to Wellington's staff in the Deccan and saw action at the Battles of Assaye and Argaum and the Siege of Gawilarh. The General remarked of him then that he had "mistaken his profession and ought to have been a soldier." Advanced to the important post of Resident at the court in Nagpur in 1804, in 1808 he was favoured further with the position of ambassador to the Afghan court at Kabul where he was to assess the extent of French penetration, who had already established an embassy in the Persian capital, and to persuade Shah Shuja into a defensive alliance. "Elphinstone's mission to Kabul was formally a failure. Suspicious of the British, the Afghan court refused to allow the embassy to proceed beyond the border town of Peshawar. Shah Shuja was only prepared to make an alliance in return for substantial British aid which the envoy was unable to offer. Meanwhile, a revolt in Kashmir had made the shah's tenure of power increasingly precarious. Elphinstone did, however, return to India with a mass of new information about the Punjab and the north-west... Elphinstone's subsequent Account of the Kingdom of Caubul continued to inform British policy on the north-western frontier until the 1840s" (ODNB). He remained in India for the next 20 years, "first as resident at Poona, then as lieutenant-governor of Bombay. As a civil administrator he served with distinction, and is often regarded as the founder of the system of state education in India. He twice refused the offer of the governor-generalship of India" (Howgego). Two volumes, octavo (211 x 120 mm). Contemporary full calf sometime rebacked with the original spines laid down, cloth inner hinges, decorative gilt spines, dark red and black twin labels, sides, edges and turn-ins with gilt scrolling foliate border, Dahlia pattern marbled edges and endpapers. Chromolithograph frontispiece to each vol., printed by A. Ducote, one plain aquatint plate ("Tope of Maunikyaula"), very large folding regional map, engraved by Sidney Hall after Lieut. John Macartney. Joints professionally refurbished, a little wear to corners, variable tanning to sides and a few abrasions, labels a little clumsily repositioned during original rebacking, closed tear to folding map repaired with archival tape. A good, clean copy in a binding that retains some of its old lustre. Abbey, Travel 504 note; Colas 960; Howgego II, E10; Lipperheide 1483; Tooley 209 (for the first edition).