Jottings of an invalid in search of health, comprising a run through British India and a visit to Singapore and Java.

A series of letters reprinted from the “Times of India”. Bombay : printed and published at the “Times of India” Office, 1865. Octavo, publisher’s gilt-lettered red cloth (rubbed and flecked), armorial bookplate of Francis Edward Stewart to front pastedown, wet stamp of Thomas Alexander of Melbourne, half-title, pp. vii; 273; a few finger marks and light foxing, one section loosening, a very good copy.

A series of letters from September 1863 – January 1865, reprinted from the Times of India newspaper by Scottish-born Australian writer William Walker (1838- 1908), under his Tom Cringle pseudonym. Walker acknowledges his pseudonym and actual name in the Preface, where he also announces his closure of his Indian career, after a ‘chequered residence of twenty-nine years’. The nom-de-plume derives from Tom Cringles Log published pseudonymously by Michael Scott in Blackwood’s Magazine.

Walker’s wide ranging ‘jottings’ cover trips through modern day Pakistan to Indonesia, including visits to Galle, Madras, Calcutta, Agra, Cawnpoor, Lucknow, Delhi, Lahore, Kurrachee, Bombay, Penang, Singapore, Batavia, Buitenzorg, Surabaya, Pasoeroean, Colombo, Kandy, Cochin, Carter, Goa and others.

Very scarce.