Smallarms of the East India Company
London: Foresight Books, 1997-1999. Four quarto volumes, red cloth with gilt lettering, illustrated throughout. A fine set with the slipcases. This exquisite four volume set presents a study in the armaments of the East India Company. Unlike the wealth of publications dealing with the topic of firearms, it is for the first time that the East India Company's contribution has been highlighted and explored in scholarship. This was, despite the Company being the largest and most successful trading company operating in colonial Britain, having maintained three armies, its own navy, and controlling much of the affairs in the Indian subcontinent. The author, David Harding, with his extensive experience specialising in smallarms and smallarms training, having been commissioned to the Princess Mary's Own Gurka Rifles, saw this gap in scholarship and made extensive research into the Company's archive examining both primary source material and surviving firearm specimens to create a definitive opus on the history of smallarms of the East India Company. Divided into four volumes, each volume concentrates on a different aspect from manufacture, to deployment and design. Volume I: Procurement and Design, Volume II: Catalogue of Patterns, Volume III: Ammunition and Performance, Volume IV: The Users and their Smallarms. Item #301
ISBN: 0953085309
Price (AUD): $2,000.00