Sarasota Estate Auction
Lot 55
Sakoontala: or The Lost Ring; An Indian Drama, Translated Into English Prose And Verse From The Sanskrit of Kalidasa, By Monier Willams, M.A., Professor Of Sanskrit At The East-India College, Haileybury, Formerly Boden Scholar In The University Of Oxford. Hertford: Printed And Published By Stephen Austin, Bookseller To The East-India College M.DCCC.LV [1855] An earlier version of Sakoontala, with elaborate gilt tooling and green covers, gilt dentelles and decorated endpapers, followed by the bookplate of R.C.A. Price, a beautifully colored frontispiece, the title page and another colored plate, a page dedicated to Colonel Boden, a twenty-one page introduction, then a List of Illustrations, followed by Rules for The Pronunciation Of The Proper Names and Persons Represented, 222 pages of text, and all the edges are gilt. The embossed decorations on the gilt edges are exquisite as well - have never seen gilt edges embossed like this before. Sakoontala is the heroine of this love story from the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, and Kalidasa was a fifth-century Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright, and Monier Williams was a British scholar who studied Sanskrit and translated Kalidasa’s play. Stephen Austin (1804 - 1892) came from a family of printers and was best known locally as the publisher of the Hertfordshire Mercury in southern England. He was a printer, bookseller, bookbinder, and stationer, according to a post office directory for 1869, and he published books in a variety of Asian languages. The colorful borders and ornaments to the illustrations came from manuscripts at the British Museum and the East India House. The book measures 8 7/8 x 7 1/8 in. wide, with light rubbing along the edge of the spine and some rubbing at the tips, and an attractive binding with beautiful illustrations of an ancient Hindu epic by one of India’s greatest poets and playwrights.
