Beschreibung:

India.- Hodges (William) Select Views in India, drawn on the spot, in the years 1780, 1781, 1782, and 1783, 2 vol. in 1, first edition, first issue, titles, dedications and text in English and French (all double-page leaves mounted on stubs), lacking titles to vol.1 but with titles to vol.2 bound at beginning and two dedications, lists of plates single leaves and in English only, with 48 fine aquatint plates printed in bistre and engraved map of River Ganges, two plates of Gwalior with small stain (fainter on second plate), some other light spotting or soiling to plates, mostly marginal, a few with faint horizontal line at head from edge of mount of preceding leaf, contemporary diced russia, gilt, rubbed, a few stains and scratches, spine ends and corners worn, [cf. Abbey, Travel 416 & Tooley 263, both later coloured issues], folio, n.p., [1785-88]. ⁂ Some of the earliest views of India by an English artist and including the first printed depiction of the Taj Mahal (plate 15 'View of the Fort of Agra'). Hodges had been draughtsman on Cook's second voyage of 1772-5, and oversaw the engraving of the plates for the published account A Voyage towards the South Pole and around the World of 1777. He then travelled in India under the patronage of Warren Hastings and these views are said to have inspired Humboldt to travel. This is the earliest issue of the work, originally published in 12 parts and with the plates uncoloured.