Daendels-Raffles: Governor of Java, Raffles family copy with ALS

London: E. Marlborough and Co., 1894. First and only edition. This is a very good copy. The maroon cloth shows some faint staining to the front panel, with light bumping at the tips and corners, and slight lifting at the foot of the spine. Internally, the gutters are slightly cracked but remain firm. There is some loss to the final leaf of text. The book is inscribed to the front pastedown, ‘R. B. Raffles 1898’ in black ink. These are the initals of R. B. Raffles, Assistant Curate and licensed in the Diocese of London. His father was William Winter Raffles, whose uncle was Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. Loosely inserted is a letter by William Henry Macleod Read, the British statesman involved in the commercial, political, and social life of Singapore between 1841 and 1887. His card is tagged in, with an address added in manuscript: ‘16 Montpelier Row, Blackheath’. Written in black ink, it is a fascinating letter. It notes that the author of this title, a Dutchman, “is hardly fair to Sir Stamford”. He continues with remarks on the site of Government House, as established by Sir Stamford Raffles, and the landscape of Java. It concludes: “I am an old Singaporean. I arrived | there in 1841 & left it for good in 1889 – | my father arrived there in 1828 & left | in 1836. | I knew Lady Raffles and Ellen, Mr | Flint & all that family. I mention | that to show that I write with earned | authority.” Remarkably, as Read himself asserts, this letter is indeed written with earned authority on Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Singapore, and Java. It is signed at the foot ‘M. H. Read’. Overall, this is a superb association copy, linking the Raffles family with later scholarship on the life and work of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.