The Ramayana: Love and Valour in India’s Great Epic, The British Library, 2008, HC, Very Good

Losty, J. P. London: The British Library, 2008.

English, Hardcover Edition, Very Good, HC, oblong 4to, 11 ½,” x 10,” Unpaginated.

ISBN: 9780712350136

Red woven cloth over boards, gilt stamped titling to spine, gilt illustrated endpapers, in publisher’s cream dust jacket with full-color image to front and back, orange and red text to front and spine, black text to inside gate flaps. Very minor edgewear, mild soiling from image transfers throughout, otherwise clean, tightly bound, and very good. In a Very Good dust jacket now protected in a Mylar sleeve. Mild shelfwear and scratching to front, spine, and back, ¾” tear to bottom edge at front near spine, mild edgewear, otherwise very good. Unpaginated. Replete with full-color images. Losty sets the historical and cultural scene for the Ramayana, the famous Indian epic, with a thorough introductory essay. Each vividly colored plate of the Ramayana is accompanied by a narrative caption. From the dust jacket: “The illustrated Ramayana commissioned by Rana Jagat Singh of Mewar in Rajasthan between 1649 and 1653…is among the greatest of seventeenth-century Indian manuscripts…Nearly 130 of the paintings are here presented in book form for the first time, allowing the reader to follow the story through the paintings.”