Oakfield or Fellowship In the East

UK: Longman, 1854. Second Edition . Decorative Cloth. Good ++/No Jacket. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Second Edition 1854. Presentation copy to 'F.B.W Arnold from her affectionate brother the author. Blackheath June 1854'. Originally published under the pseudonym Punjabee. The second edition, of 1854, reveals the author's identity and adds a preface which functions as an apologia.This novel by the youner son of Thomas Arnold and brother of Matthew Arnold is of major importance both as a acoount of the British in India and as a vivid picture of religeous doubt and a young man's crisis of conscience. The book is one of the earliest novelistic accounts of life in British India, and its plot strongly mirrors the biography of its author. Set in India in the years surrounding the First Afghan War, the novel describes the unhappy experiences of the eponymous Edward Oakfield, an Oxford graduate who, we are told, enlisted in the East India Company's military service because he had grown tired of the metaphysical debates dominating that university. In India, Oakfield is repelled by what he sees as an absence of Christian gentlemanliness among the Company's military officers, and he soon retreats to introspection and the comradeship of a few, thinly spread, kindred spirits.The novel is a stinging indictment of the moral standards of the British regiments in India. This second edition contains a new preface by the author in which he defends himself against those who say he slurred the good name of the Indian army officers. The books are good++ and bound in their original cloth. Cloth edges very rubbed and repaired in places. Hinges repaired in places especially at the spine tips. . Contents good. Bookplates to endpapers. More images can be taken upon request. Ref10549