The rarest of all the Indian view books. Simpson's views of India is one of the rarest of all the Indian view books and a fine record of the country just after the Sepoy Rebellion. Following the success of his earlier book on the Crimea War, Simpson was commissioned to produce an illustrated book on India to rival Roberts' Holy Land. Although he produced about 250 watercolours which he submitted to Day & Son, the project was reduced in size owing to a financial panic in 1866 which spooked potential subscribers, combined with the high cost of producing chromolithograph plates.

Simpson (1823-1899) spent two and a half years travelling in India from his arrival in Calcutta in October 1859 to his departure from Bombay in February 1862. Places he visited in the north included Lahore, Simla, the upper reaches of the Sutlej as far as Chini (higher than the Frasers had been able to explore), Agra and Lucknow. Simpson spent a few weeks in early 1861 with Lord and Lady Canning in Central India. While they were at Jubbulpore, Simpson decided to visit Rajasthan. It was rather a wild thing to go off all by myself... The ordinary traveller who does India sees Bombay, Calcutta, Benares, Agra and Delhi, but the vast spaces between these noted places he sees nothing of. It is in these spaces that the real India exists.'

First edition; 2 vols, large folio 63 x 46 cm), 2 title pages printed in red and black (vol. II title with tears repaired), chromolithograph dedication, 50 chromolithograph plates after William Simpson, all mounted on card, occasional short marginal tears to blank card repaired, contemporary red half morocco gilt, rebacked and recornered, all edges gilt, a very good copy.

Bobins 269; Godrej & Rohatgi (Scenic Splendours), pp. 98-99.