The first and only edition of a grand and spectacular visual presentation (there are only five pages of text) of the city of Jalalabad and its fortifications in eastern Afghanistan and related sites as far away as Kabul. The illustrated title-page (image size 45 x 35 cm) shows the tower known as Alexanders column, with mountains and clouds in the background and several people at its foot (including two on horseback in the foreground: a British officer and turbaned man), the whole framed by palm trees, other plants and military attributes. The first 11 leaves of views (2 half-page and 10 full-page, the latter mostly with image size 26.5 x 37 cm) offer meticulously detailed views of sites in and related to Jalalabad, including four in and around Kabul. These show the architecture (including minarets, fortifications and the building where the British were held prisoner) as well as British and Afghan people engaged in military activities and trade. The 11 numbered plates that follow show two panoramas each (nos. 1 and 10 reproducing a hand-written caption) showing Jalalabads fortifications before (below) and after (above) the repairs and improvements undertaken by Sale. A red line in the upper views indicates the parts that had been destroyed by an earthquake.
Various sources speculatively date the present publication from ca. 1842 to ca. 1846, but at least in the present copy a footnote on the first page of the letterpress text mentions the death of Sir Robert Sale on 21 December 1845, so the book must have been published in the last 10 days of 1845 or early in 1846.
With an armorial bookplate showing the crest and motto ("sans changer") of the Earls of Derby, probably the 14th Earl, Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley (1799-1869), Conservative Prime Minister three times in the years 1852-1868. With minor foxing, slightly more in the frontispiece and much more in one full-page plate (Babas garden, whose paper is not as thick as the others), but otherwise in very good condition. The frontispiece (together with the 2 preceding free endleaves) has separated from the bookblock, the hinges have been restored and the binding shows a few scuff marks, but the binding remains in good condition. Magnificent and detailed tinted lithographs of buildings, fortifications, terrain and life in and around Jalalabad (and Kabul) in Afghanistan ca. 1845. Thomson, The exotic and the beautiful (Bobins coll.) 268; WorldCat (3 copies?); not in Abbey, Travel.