DELHI DURBAR - WHEELER, J. Talboys.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The History of the Imperial Assemblage at Delhi, held on the 1st January, 1877, to Celebrate the Assumption of the Title of Empress of India by Her Majesty the Queen. First and only edition of this scarce pictorial record, the handsomely produced official history of the spectacular "Proclamation Durbar" - stage-managed by the viceroy, Lord Lytton - that announced the queen as "Victoria regina et imperatrix" ("Victoria, queen and empress").It was Lytton who chose Delhi as the site of the durbar, the city "still battle-scarred from the rebellion almost twenty years previously", and he was particularly keen to secure the attendance of Muslim princes, such as the Nizam of Hyderabad, "whose failure to meet with the Prince of Wales at Bombay in 1875 still prickled" (Taylor). Lytton then devoted much time "designing the symbolic and decorative aspects of the durbar", commissioning John Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard's father, to assist with design. But the viceroy was, above all, at pains over "measures to rope the princes and chiefs into the new imperial order. In some ways, it was business as usual … Inducements were offered to minor princes that the Government of India would pay the costs of travel, and special arrangements were made in Delhi to house the entourages … Tens of thousands of people made their way to Delhi. The Gaekwar of Baroda, for example, sent on ahead an entourage of 520 men, 114 horses, 24 bullocks, 21 camels and 10 elephants" (Miller).Although the durbar drew on a

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.