Thirty Years of Shikar

Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1895. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Edinburgh, William Blackwood and Sons, 1895. Octavo, x, 374 (last the colophon), [2] (publisher's advertisements), 32 (publisher's catalogue dated 4/95) pages with illustrations plus a frontispiece and a large folding map. Black- and gilt-pictorial green cloth a litle rubbed and marked, with light wear to the extremities; contemporary Port Augusta Institute inkstamp on an early blank page and the bottom corner margins of page 321 (with a smaller one at the head of the first page); short tear to the map neatly sealed; mild signs of age and use; overall a very good copy. Sir Edward Nicholas Coventry Braddon KCMG (1829-1904), civil servant and politician, spent the years 1847 to 1878 in India, mainly as an administrator in the Deoghar division and the 'recently annexed province of Oudh.... much of his time was spent in the saddle', and much of this memoir is devoted to big game hunting. (Indeed, 'shikar' is an Urdu/Hindi word for hunting as a sport.) When he left India, he settled in Tasmania, where he played a significant role in state and federal politics. He was premier of Tasmania from 1894 to 1899, before becoming a member of the first Commonwealth parliament. (The 'Australian Dictionary of Biography' has a detailed account of his interesting life).