The Poisonous Snakes of India. For the use of the officials and others residing in the Indian Empire

Ewart, Joseph

Published by J. & A. Churchill, London, 1878

About this Item

PRESENTATION COPY. Quarto (9 3/4" x 7 1/4", 247mm x 185mm). [Full collation available.] With 21 plates, of which 19 are chromolithographed (one, pl. 2, is double) and 2 lithographed. Bound in the publisher's red cloth. On the boards, a triple blind fillet border (thin-thick-thin). On the front, title and author gilt within a rounded gilt frame. Title gilt to the spine. Black end-papers. Front joint split. Wear to the front hinge. Rubbed overall, with a small patch of wear to the rear board. Internally quite clean, with a little offsetting from some plates and foxing to pll. 20 and 21. Ink dedication to "Sir William Muir J.C.C.B./ with the Author's Compliments." to the title-page. Ink-stamp of "C.ANTHONY" to the title-page and to the preface. Sir Joseph Ewart (1831-1906) rose through the ranks of British India via the East India Company to become Principal of the Calcutta Medical College, President of Faculty of Medicine at the Calcutta University and deputy Surgeon-General of the Indian Medical Service. His career in colonial medicine saw a great many contributions to public health broadly, especially in the field of dysentery and snake-bites, which were both significant threats. The Poisonous Snakes takes its plates (reduced) from Sir Joseph Fayrer's Thanatophidia, in the aim of creating a proper handbook that could be deployed locally in cases of imminent threat. Chromolithography was crucial to this function; because the precise coloring of the snakes can sometimes be used to distinguish a deadly snake from a harmless one, the consistency of coloration is crucial and not achievable through ordinary hand-coloring. The plates are vivid indeed, with the king cobra (the double-plate) being almost surreally depicted. As the thousand-strong accounting of subscribers shows, the book was in great demand. Useful as it was, surviving copies are quite scarce, with nine copies recorded at auction. Scarcer still is the survival of a presentation copy (no copies at auction), let alone one with such an important association. Sir William Muir (1819-1905) was, like the author, a Scotsman who went on to high office (Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, more or less Uttar Pradesh) in India. Both served during the 1857 rebellion and returned to Britain, where they attained prominence in education (Muir was principal of the University of Edinburgh, Ewart a member of the Education Committee). Nissen ZBI 1325.

Seller Inventory # 6JLR0099

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Poisonous Snakes of India. For the use of the officials and others residing in the Indian Empire
• Publisher: J. & A. Churchill, London
• Publication Date: 1878
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First.
• Condition: Very good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Medical
  • Natural History
  • India