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LEWIN, Thomas H.
A fly on the wheel, or how I helped to govern India.
Thomas Herbert Lewin (1839-1916) was a model of the pioneer soldier-administrator working among the tribes of the Lushai and Chittagong Hill Tracts on India's north-eastern frontier. He joined the Bengal Establishment as an ensign in 1857, serving in the Mutiny in the Defence of Cawnpore and at the Siege of Lucknow, and later in the Lushai Expedition of 1871-2. But he was not only a man of action, but also an explorer, anthropologist, linguist, artist and musician, author of The Wild Races of South Eastern India, A Manual of Tibetan, and The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers therein. After his retirement, with the rank of Major, in 1877 he became a close friend to many eminent Victorians, including George Meredith and Edward Burne-Jones. Not an ideal copy, but sound, and this first edition of Lewin's unusually enlightened account is increasingly hard to find.
Octavo, recased in the original red cloth, title gilt to spine, and to the upper board with a large gilt block of "the fly on the wheel." Frontispiece and 3 other plates, illustrations and a sketch-map to the text, folding map. Cloth a little rubbed and recoloured, spine relined, new free endpapers, some spotting and browning, a few small worm-holes, but overall a very good copy.
