Wanderings of a Pilgrim, in Search of the Picturesque, during four-and-twenty years in the East; with revelations of life in the Zenana. Illustrated with sketches from nature

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Not only is this one of the most readable travel memoirs of the day, but perhaps one of the most unique, with such female voices and perspectives infrequently found in print during the period. First edition, 50 lithograph plates (complete, including 20 coloured), 2 volumes, 1850, in the original gilt titled & decorated, blue cloth, a few marks. Internally Vol 1, frontis, [7], (viii-xxxv), [1], [1], 2-479 pp, [1], 29 plates (inclusive of the attractive lithographed folding panorama of the Himalayas in the end pocket). Vol 2, frontis, [3], (iv-xiii), [1], [1], 2-523 pp, 21 plates. Some paper edge repairs to title & frontis, book label to fpds (Montagu Egerton Loftus) & contemporary ink ownership signature to tps (G. Hodgson, Fair Lawn). The second volume concludes with chapters on Cape Town and South Africa. (279*191 mm). (Abbey, Travel 476; Mendelssohn III, pp. 630-31). Loftus (1860-1934), was the Vice-Consul in Corsica and a Kings Messenger. Parks was born in Conwy, North Wales. She arrived in India in 1822, as the wife of Charles Crawford Parkes, a civil servant in the East India Company. Stationed at Allahabad, she travelled extensively, often on her own, visiting Agra, Fatehgarh, Cawnpore, Meerut, Delhi, & Landour in the Himalayas. As a woman she was able to enter the Zenana, witnessing marriage & religious ceremonies not reported on by male writers. Unlike most of her English female contemporaries in India, she immersed herself in Indian culture, making this one of the most readable travel memoirs of the period. According to ODNB " Her fluent Hindustani enabled her to penetrate Indian life, & she adopted some Indian customs, signing her writing and drawings in Persian script... & playing the sitar."