Malabar [2 Volumes] + 1 map
William Logan, Malabar, Madras: R. Hill, 1887, first edition
Two volumes
Volume I: pp. x + 760 pages
25.4 x 17 x 7 cm
Volume II: pp. ccccxxvi (426)
25.4 x 17 x 4 cm
27 lithographed maps, plans, and charts (many folding, one large, several hand-coloured in outline)
Original calf-backed boards or full calf (as issued)
PROVENANCE
From the Library of Colonel S B Miles
William Logan’s Malabar (1887): The Definitive Administrative and Ethnographic Manual of the Malabar Coast, with a large folding map
A scarce first edition of the most comprehensive nineteenth-century study of the Malabar region of southwest India, printed under British rule and commissioned by the Government of Madras. Compiled during William Logan’s tenure as Collector of Malabar under the Madras Presidency, this important two-volume work remains the most authoritative regional manual of Kerala and one of the great documentary surveys produced by the mature apparatus of colonial governance in the late nineteenth century.
Logan, a Scottish officer of the Madras Civil Service, spent nearly twenty years in Kerala as acting resident, collector, and later judge under the East India Company administration. As the district’s chief official, he had access to extensive archival, revenue, and judicial resources, as well as a dedicated network of knowledgeable local assistants. He expressly acknowledged the contributions of two native officers of the colonial administration, O. Kannan and Kunju Menon, whose notes and expertise informed many sections of the work.
The set is illustrated with 27 lithographed maps, plans, and charts, many folding, including a large map hand-coloured in outline—among the earliest maps to show the interior geography of Malabar with administrative clarity. These visual materials document district boundaries, revenue divisions, roads, rivers, and coastal features, and were intended for practical governmental use as much as for scholarly reference.
The Malabar Manual is a veritable compendium of accurate information on the region’s geography, mountains and rivers, geology, climate, flora and fauna, and the social and cultural life of its people. Organised into four substantial chapters, it treats:
Province — boundaries, topography, mountains, rivers, backwaters, and streams
People — caste structures, occupations, settlements, language, education, customs, and traditions
History — early archaeology, Dutch, English and French occupations, Mysore rule, and British domination
Land — land tenure, jenmi systems, taxation, and revenue assessment
Logan’s work is particularly valued for its detailed treatment of landholding, Moplah history, caste organisation, and the complex interaction between indigenous polities and successive European powers. Although many district manuals were issued in the final decades of the nineteenth century, Malabar remains uniquely important for historians and scholars as a foundational documentary record of the 1880s Malabar Coast.
Complete sets retaining their full complement of maps and plans are increasingly scarce.
NON-EXPORTABLE
This lot is offered at RESERVE
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