KORÖSI CSOMA, Sandór.

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Essay towards a Dictionary, Tibetan and English. Prepared, with the Assistance of Bandé Sangs-Rgyas Phun-Tschogs, a learned La'ma of Zangska'r, during a Residence at Kanam, in the Hima'laya Mountains, on the Confines of India and Tibet. 1827-1830. First editions of the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar, only one copy of the Dictionary appearing in auction records (2007) and just two complete copies of the Grammar (1955 and 1998). This set is from the library of Thomas Herbert Lewin (1839-1916), an army officer and frontier administrator, and has his engraved armorial bookplate. "Despite Lewin's diminutive self-image, as suggested by the title of his memoirs [A Fly on the Wheel or, How I Helped to Govern India (1885)], his life in British India ultimately involved a good deal of adventure and a significant contribution to the administration of Burma" (Riddick). He joined the Bengal Establishment as an ensign in 1857, serving in the Mutiny at the defence of Cawnpore and at the siege of Lucknow before turning to police work on India's north-eastern frontier. "Here he found a larger field of satisfying action in the civil administration of the hill tribes of the Chittagong from 1866 to 1873. His memoirs correctly reflect a pride in his negotiations with the Lushai and Howlong tribes which brought a peaceful settlement to the area and the release of nearly one hundred British subjects" (ibid.). A model of the pioneer soldier-administrator, he was also a practised lingui

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