Charles Alexander Gordon Our Trip to Burmah rare First Edition, Talbot Kelly Burma Painted Described Burmese Monks Tales, Vincent Land White Elephant.

Aung, Muang Htin. Burmese Monk's Tales
Published: Columbia University Press. New York and London. 1966
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Original pictorial brown cloth with dust jacket.
Price: U.S.$145

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8vo., original brown cloth pictorially decorated in green in its price-clipped pictorial dust jacket, pp. x + 181, vignette title page, minor wear to corners and edges of jacket, a very good copy.

A collection of fifty-nine tales by a famous and learned Burmese monk, the Thin-gaza Hsaya-daw (1815-86), and of twelve tales by other Burmese Monks, translated and introduced by Htin Aung. It combines exotic backgrounds and homely details thus offering the Western reader both a picture of Burma in the nineteenth century and an understanding of the basic good sense, gaiety, and gentleness of the Burmese people and the Buddhist clergy.

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Foucar, E.C.V. I Lived in Burma
Published: London, Dennis Dobson 1956
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Olive Green Cloth, Dust Wrapper
Price: U.S. $110

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8vo., First Edition, original olive green cloth, pictorial dust wrapper chipped with small loss to spine tail, pp. 272,including index, map of Burma on endpapers, illustrated with 8 full page photographic plates, offsetting to map endpapers from dust wrapper, a very good copy.

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Geil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze being a narrative of a journey from Shanghai through the Central Kingdom of Burma
Published: New York, A. C. Armstrong and Son. 1904
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original pictorial maroon cloth
Price: U.S.$275

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8vo, First Edition, original maroon cloth, pictorial decorated and lettered in white with slight rubbing to corners & edges, spine gilt, pp. xv + 312, with 100 full page illustrations, plus vignette initials and chapter headings in Chinese script with English translations, prize inscription dated christmas 1904 on front free endpaper, binding still bright & contents clean, a very good copy.

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Gordon, Surgeon General Charles Alexander. Our Trip to Burmah with Notes on that Country
Published: London: Bailliere, Tindal and Cox. (1877)
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original
Price: U.S.$Sold

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8vo., First edition. original green cloth pictorially stamped in black with gilt decorative borders and lettered in gilt, bevelled edges, gilt lettered spine, pp.xii, 265, illustrated with 18 plates, of which 6 are chromolithographs and twelve are tipped in Woodbury types, 19 illustrations, 3 maps, 1 folding, very light browning mainly to verso of one or two plates,small one inch tear to margin of folding map, light wear to binding, overall a very good copy in its attractive original binding. Very rare in this condition.

Gordon accompanied Sir F. P. Haines, Commander-in-Chief Madras, on a three month tour of Burma in the winter of 1875-76. This book consists of the diary of that trip followed by Gordon's extensive notes on Burmese history and culture. The mounted photographs are from the studios of Jackson, Shepherd and Bourne, Nicholas, & others. The chromolithograph plates are by a Burmese artist.

Herbert 45
Cordier 421

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Kelly, R. Talbot. Burma Painted & Described
Published: London. Adam and Charles Black. 1912
Edition: Second Edition
Binding: Elaborate Decorated Maroon Cloth
Price: U.S.$195

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Small 4to., original elaborate decorated maroon cloth, light damp spotting, spine faded ( as per usual), few very small worm holes to joints, top edge gilt, pp. xv + 261, folding colour map, profusely illustrated with 75 tissue guarded full page colour plates, one page of publisher's adverts at rear, contents clean, a good copy.

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MacKenzie, Col. K. P.. Operation Rangoon Jail
Published: Christopher Johnson, London 1954
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Original red cloth with dust wrapper
Price: U.S.$65

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8vo., First Edition, original red cloth, pictorial dust wrapper soiled and worn, with small loss to corners and edges and 2 one inch tears, pp. 201, illustrated with 15 full page photographic plates, plus diagrams and a map of Burma, 9 ink underlines to page 111, browning marks to endpapers, a good copy.

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O'Connor, V. C. Scott. The Silken East A Record of Life and Travel in Burma.
Published: Hutchinson & Co. London. 1928
Edition: Second Edition
Binding: Original gilt tooled blue cloth.
Price: U.S.$190

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8vo., 2nd Edition, original gilt tooled blue cloth, gilt lettered spine, one inch tear to base of spine, pp. 384, profusely illustrated through-out with 200 plates including 8 coloured & a folding colour map at rear, a very good copy.

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Orwell, George.

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8vo., First Edition, original black lettered orange cloth, slightly soiled and marked, spine slightly faded, patterned yellow/white endpapers, half title, title in green & black, four inch thin line mark to title page only just noticeable, pp. 371, a clean & good tight copy of this classic.

There were some problems in publishing Orwell's second book, Burmese Days. Victor Gollancz declined it, anxious that it would offend too many people in Indian circles (especially retired imperial servants with letter-writing time on their hands?), and that it might invite libel actions from individuals who might claim to recognise themselves. Interestingly, later discussions about the names of characters in the novel between Gollancz and Orwell suggest that Victor was as concerned about being sued by Burmese and Indians who recognised themselves in the book as by English colonial officials. The risk seemed too great: “I can't face the sleepless nights”, wrote Gollancz to Orwell. Heinemann rejected the book for similar reasons. However, Harper Brothers in New York, unworried about offending imperial sensibilities, took the novel (with some alterations to minimise the possibility of libel actions). Burmese Days came out in New York in October 1934. The most recent account suggests that about 3,000 copies of this edition sold between October 1934 and February 1935. This was respectable, if short of the success which Orwell defined in a contemporary letter as “not less than 4,000 copies [sold]”. Reviews were also favourable.

British Club in Kathar (In Orwell's time it consisted of only the ground floor)

Burma and the early novels

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June, 1903]—21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. Noted as a novelist and critic as well as a political and cultural commentator, Orwell is among the most widely admired English-language essayists of the 20th century. He is best known for two novels critical of totalitarianism in general, and Stalinism in particular: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eight-Four. Both were written and published towards the end of his life.

After Blair finished his studies at Eton, his family could not pay for university and his father felt that he had no prospect of winning a scholarship, so in 1922 he joined the Indian Imperial Police, serving at Katha and Moulmein in Burma. He came to hate imperialism, and when he returned to England on leave in 1927 he decided to resign and become a writer. He later used his Burmese experiences for the novel Burmese Days (1934) and in such essays as "A Hanging" (1931) and "Shooting an Elephant" (1936).

Blair's grandmother lived at Moulmein, and with family connections in the area, his choice of posting was Burma. In October 1922, he sailed on board SS Herefordshire via the Suez Canal and Ceylon to join the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. A month later he arrived at Rangoon and made the journey to Mandalay, the site of the police training school. After a short posting at Maymyo, Burma's principal hill station, he was posted to the frontier outpost of Myaungmya in the Irrawaddy Delta at the beginning of 1924.

His imperial policeman's life gave him considerable responsibilities for a young man while his contemporaries were still at university in England. When he was posted to Twante as a sub-divisional officer, he was responsible for the security of some 200,000 people. At the end of 1924, he was promoted to Assistant District Superintendent and posted to Syriam, which was closer to Rangoon. In September 1925 he went to Insein, the home of the second largest jail in Burma. At Insein he had "long talks on every conceivable subject" with a journalist friend, Elisa Maria Langford-Rae, later the wife of Kazi Lhendup Dorjee, who noted his "sense of utter fairness in minutest details".

In April 1926 he moved to Moulmein, where his grandmother lived, and at the end of that year he went on to Katha. There he contracted Dengue fever in 1927. He was entitled to leave in England in that year and, in view of his illness, was allowed to go home in July. While on leave in England in 1927, he reappraised his life and resigned from the Indian Imperial Police with the intention of becoming a writer.

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Thorp, Ellen. Quiet Skies on Salween
Published: Jonathan Cape, London 1945
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original Turquoise Cloth
Price: U.S.$70

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8vo., First Edition, original turquoise cloth in its plain brown lettered dust wrapper, rather worn and faded with loss at corners and edges, pp. 175, inscription on front free endpaper, apart from wear to dust wrapper, a very good copy.

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Vincent, Frank, Jun. The Land of the White Elephant, Sights and Scenes in South-Eastern Asia. A Personal Narrative of Travel and Adventure in Farther India embracing the countries of Burma, Siam, Cambodia, and Cochin-China (1871-2) with maps plans and numerous illustrations.
Published: London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, & Searle. 1873
Binding: Original brown cloth gilt tooled and blind stamped
Edition: First Edition (True First Edition)
Price: U.S.$1,275

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8vo., First Edition, original brown cloth, 4 blind stamped borders around a centre gilt tooled figure of King Rama V of Siam, spine elaborately gilt tooled and lettered, wear to corners and edges with small loss to head and tail of spine, dark blue/green endpapers, pp. xix + 316 & 48 pages of publisher's adverts, illustrated with a frontispiece plate and 32 full page engravings, ( 1 folding ), 23 smaller plates within text, and 3 maps ( 1 colour folding ), small angle cut from bottom corners of pages 49-52, an occasional pencil tick or underline, previous owner's bookplate on paste-down, small "withdrawn from"and perforated stamp at foot of title page, contents clean, a good copy of the VERY RARE LONDON FIRST EDITION.

Frank Vincent (1848-1916)
Was a notable 19th century American travel writer. This account of his journeys in South East Asia in 1871-1872 is apparently the first description of the fabulous Khmer temple complex of Angkor Wat by an American. The temple complex had only been popularized a decade earlier by the French explorer Henri Mauhot. starting in Burma, he provides an account of his visit to Rangoon, the manners and customs of the Burmese, his trip up the Irrawaddy River to the old capital of Pagan and Mandalay, an audience with the King of Ava, and his white elephant and royal barges. From Burma, he traveled overland through Shan and Lao populated areas of Northern Siam to Bangkok, and thence south along the peninsula to Malacca and Singapore. Returning north to Cambodia, he visited Angkor and the great temple complex, had an audience with the King of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, and finished in Saigon in the French Indo chinese province of Cochin ( now Southern Vietnam).

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Vincent, Frank, Jun. The Land of the White Elephant, Sights and Scenes in South-Eastern Asia. A Personal Narrative of Travel and Adventure in Farther India embracing the countries of Burma, Siam, Cambodia, and Cochin-China (1871-2) with maps plans and numerous illustrations.
Published: New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers. 1874
Binding: Original gilt tooled blue cloth
Edition: First U.S. Edition
Price: U.S.$875

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8vo., First U.S. Edition, original gilt tooled and lettered blue cloth, worn at corners and edges with three inch extra wear to lower fore-edge, spine gilt, brown endpapers, pp. xix + 316 & 4 pages of publisher's adverts, illustrated with a frontispiece plate and 33 full page engravings, ( 1 folding ), 23 smaller plates within text, and 3 maps ( 1 colour folding ), very small nic to top edges of folding map through to page 6, contents clean and bright, apart from edges wear to binding, a very good copy indeed of the 1st U.S. edition which has one more full page plate than the London 1873 First edition.

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Yin, U Tun. Wild Animals of Burma
Published: Rangoon Gazette Ltd., Rangoon Burma
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original Orange/Black Cloth
Price: U.S.$150

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4to., First Edition, original black lettered orange cloth slightly soiled, 1/4 black cloth spine, pp. xi + 301, illustrated with numerous full page photographic plates and text illustrations, including colour frontispiece plate, a random spot here and there, a very good copy.

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Zeyya Kyaw Htin Bohmu Ba Shin. The Lokahteikpan.
Published: The Burma Historical Commission, Ministry of Union culture, The Revolutionary Government Union of Burma. September 1962
Edition: First Edition.
Binding: Original pictorial yellow paper wraps.
Price: U.S.$125

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4to., (24 x 19cms), original pictorial yellow paper wraps, a trifle creased, pp. iv + 210, corrigenda, plus 70 full page plates & folding map at rear, also illustrated with a tissue guarded frontispiece plate plus diagrams and charts, 2 separate written group of numbers written on front free endpaper, 3 library stamps one on title page, page 203 and back of blank white inside cover, contents clean a very good copy written in Pali with an English translation.

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