Votive Offerings in Southern India.

author's own copy, only 1 of 3 printed

The author's own copy of this rare treatise on Hindu votive offerings. Only three copies were printed, and we can find no record of the other two in any institution, and a copy has never appeared at auction.

Inscription reads: 'Only three copies / issued - for the / Princess of Wales, / Chief Secretary to / Government, and / myself. / Edgar Thurston / 1906.'

The Princess of Wales at the time was Mary of Teck (1867-1953), wife of George V, shortly before coming Queen, and the Chief Secretary to the Madras Government at the time was the newly appointed Murray Love Hammick (1854-1936), who became Governor of Madras briefly in 1912. Neither of their copies have we been able to locate.

Edgar Thurston (1855–1935) was the British Superintendent at the Madras Government Museum from 1885 to 1908. He wrote extensively on Indian natural history and archaeology, such as in this work, and anthropology and ethnology, of which his most important is his great seven volume work Castes and Tribes of Southern India (1909). He contributed significantly to Indian study in both his writings and leadership of the Madras Government Museum.

First edition; 8vo (22 x 14.5 cm); signed inscription to first blank, 3 plates; publisher's original limp morocco boards, gilt lettering and vignetter to upper board, all edges gilt, small repair to loss at head of spine, a very good copy; 29 pp.