Saturday, May 14, 2011

War in Mysore

Chicksands covers a wide variety of historical material, and is especially strong concerning subjects like the American Civil War. Another area that continues to grow as boxes are opened is that of works on the Indian Subcontinent.

Not surprisingly, many of the works are about the Sepoy Rebellion, but there are also volumes on lesser known conflicts such as the Anglo-Mysore Wars. I came across the following book concerning the Third Anglo-Mysore war:

This narrative focuses on the culmination of the war: the siege of Seringapatam in 1792 that resulted in a treaty between the British East India Company, Mysore, and their respective allies. It features some very detailed plates and illustrations:


as well as exceptional maps and orders of battle. The book is in very good condition considering its age, and was probably rebound in the 1930s (thanks Jan!).

In addition to Dirom's narrative, I also discovered a personal account of British Officer David Price who participated in these conflicts:


Price dedicates this work to his good friend - another officer named 'Moor'. While searching for more information about these books, I found that both have been digitized by other libraries. This digitization allowed me to search for Price in Dirom's narrative, but he received no mention. However, his friend 'Moor' is mentioned once for an act of bravery in command and subsequent serious (but not fatal) wounding.

These digital copies of antiquarian works are most helpful in that one often gains the ability to search them for such specific information. On the other hand, one may lose something in the process...

Here you can see a comparison of one of the highly detailed maps that has been so well preserved in our Chicksands copy of the 1794 narrative:


While the digitized version unfortunately could not account for the fold-out pages:


It goes to show just how important these original (not just digitized!) copies are to preserve and make available for researchers.

1 comment:

  1. Very valid point about how some information is lost in digitization! Thanks.

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