Oriental Memoirs: Selected and Abridged from a Series of Familiar Letters Written during Seventeen Years’ Residence in India

James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs: Selected and Abridged from a Series of Familiar Letters Written during Seventeen Years’ Residence in India: Including Observations on Parts of Africa and South America, and a Narrative of Occurrences in Four India Voyages, London: Printed for the author by T. Bensley, Bolt Court, and published by White, Cochrane, and Co., 1813

(In 4 Volumes)
Volume I: [4], xxiii, [1], 481, [1] pp., including 40 plates
Volume II: xv, [1], 542 pp., including 28 plates
Volume III: xii, 487, [1] pp., including 20 plates
Volume IV: xi, [1], 425, [7] pp., including 5 plates (the final [7] pages contain index/errata/directions for placing plates)

A total of 93 engraved or lithographed plates (some later hand-coloured) after original drawings, some folding, including botanical, zoological, ethnographic and topographical subjects; bound in contemporary or slightly later black straight-grain morocco, spines gilt in compartments, gilt-lettered, gilt edges.
12.13 x 9.84 in (30.8 x 25 cm) (each)

SEVENTEEN YEARS IN INDIA: JAMES FORBES’S MONUMENTAL ORIENTAL MEMOIRS (1813) – COMPLETE IN FOUR VOLUMES

James Forbes (1749–1819), a Fellow of the Royal Society and one of the earliest British residents of Bombay, is remembered above all for his monumental Oriental Memoirs (1813). Having arrived in India in 1765 as a writer in the service of the East India Company, Forbes spent much of his seventeen years in western India attached to the Company’s administration in Bombay. His experiences, enriched by extensive travels through Gujarat and the Deccan, were distilled in this four-volume narrative accompanied by a separate atlas of plates—one of the most ambitious works on India to appear in the early nineteenth century.

Forbes is of particular importance in the history of Bombay because he was among the first Europeans to document the city in detail, both in writing and in art. In his letters and illustrations, later published in Oriental Memoirs, he describes the island city’s fortifications, trading community, natural environment, and religious diversity. He records visits to the Elephanta Caves, then already famous for their monumental rock-cut sculptures, and offers early European impressions of Bombay’s temples, mosques, and marketplaces. His observations extend beyond architecture to the lived realities of the city — its merchants, festivals, and multi-ethnic character, which he viewed with both fascination and the paternalism typical of his age.

The engraved plates that accompany the Oriental Memoirs include some of the earliest published images of Bombay and western India, drawn from Forbes’s own sketches. They show landscapes, temples, costumes, and scenes of daily life, and often capture details of Bombay’s surroundings — palm-lined coasts, Portuguese churches, and island villages — at a time when the city was emerging as a key colonial port. These images are not only aesthetically compelling but also historically significant, offering scholars and collectors some of the first visual records of Bombay’s transformation under Company rule.

Forbes’s role as a Bombay-based civil servant and later as one of the city’s chroniclers has long been recognised by historians. His natural history interests, particularly his botanical studies, flourished in Bombay’s tropical environment, and he often combined descriptions of the island’s flora and fauna with accounts of its people. Upon returning to England, Forbes became part of a circle of intellectuals fascinated by India, and his Oriental Memoirs — privately printed in 1813 at his own expense — was intended as both a scholarly resource and a personal testament to his years in Bombay.

Complete sets of the Oriental Memoirs, particularly those retaining the separate atlas of plates, are scarce. The present copy, preserved in handsome uniform bindings, is not only a landmark in the literature of British India but also a cornerstone in the early documentary history of Bombay. It speaks directly to the theme of this auction, situating Bombay at the intersection of travel writing, colonial ethnography, and visual culture at the dawn of the nineteenth century.

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