Antiquarian, Architectural, and Landscape Illustrations of the History of Java. With a Large Map of Java and it s Dependencies, and several interesting plates now first published. - Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles 1844 - Henry G. Bohn, London - First Thus Magnificent large quarto volume of illustrations with great provenance, formerly from the library of Admiral Sir James Gordon (1782-1869) who served as a Midshipman under Admiral Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, and went on to command ships during the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars. He eventually attained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, and is considered to be one of the main inspirations for C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower, alongside Thomas Cochrane, George Cockburn and others.

This separate volume of topographical, archaeological, linguistic and anthropological plates was published in 1844 to accompany the 1830 second edition of Sir Stamford Raffles’ landmark work ‘
The History of Java’, including twenty four additional plates not found in the first edition of 1817.

With 92 illustrated plates, including 10 fine hand-coloured aquatints and a very large folding map. No text. In the publisher’s original gilt and red cloth binding.
  Sir Thomas Raffles (1781-1826) "sought to put into practice the most advanced Western views of his time on personal liberty, judicial equality, education, free trade, penal reform, and slave emancipation. A man of vision, with great ambitions for himself and his country, he saw Britain's mission to raise the people of the eastern archipelago from ignorance and poverty, not by means of territorial expansion but a combination of commercial and moral pre-eminence: reviving old cultures and spreading European enlightenment through economic progress, liberal education, and the rule of law..." (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

Provenance: Admiral Sir James Alexander Gordon, with his ownership signature to fly-leaf.

Quarto (book size 33.6x27.6cm), pp. [1 (title)] [1] [3 (list of plates)] [1] followed by plates and map. In publisher’s red cloth binding, rebacked to style with red cloth spine ruled in black, boards with blind-stamped decorations, upper board lettered in gilt, original pale yellow coated endpapers.
  Condition: Near fine, some minor finger soiling, in very good original boards, rebacked to style, boards restored, original endpapers with marks and chipping.   Ref: 111256   Price: HK$ 18,000