THE FOLIO SOCIETY

Fired by a wild dream of fame and fortune, Thomas Daniell departed Britain in 1784 accompanied by his nephew William. During their 10-year odyssey across the globe, they visited southern Africa, Malaya, Java, China, Arabia, and travelled the length and breadth of India, from the foot-hills of the Himalayas to the lush wilderness of Cape Comorin. Braving wild beasts, discomfort and war, they witnessed sights no other European had ever come across.

Adventure was clearly in the Daniells' blood, for William's charismatic brother Samuel made his own journeys, trekking further into the depths of southern Africa than any previous European and roaming the jungles of Ceylon.

All three were artists and they painted as they went, creating some of the most evocative and romantic visual records made by any traveller. In their paintings and sketches they portray a world of contrasts: dusty villages and bustling ports; rock-cut temples and teeming bazaars, majestic rivers, snow-capped peaks and tangled forests; exotic animals and sophisticated peoples. It was a world that would soon change irreversibly, and we can thank the Daniells for revealing with unprecedented accuracy and authenticity all the kaleidoscopic splendour of the civilisations of the East as they stood poised at the dawn of British rule.

This sumptuous new book, commissioned specially for The Folio Society, is the most extensive colour collection of the Daniells' work to have been published in nearly 200 years. Over 150 paintings, watercolours, aquatints and drawings are combined with extracts from the Daniells' writings and those of other travellers of the time. The result is a profoundly beautiful portrait, more telling than photographs and more immediate than words alone.