Philip Henry Egerton

Once again Hugh Ashley Rayner has done a great service to Raj photography by reprinting this important 1864 photographic volume by a British administrator. Philip Henry Egerton was traveling to an even more obscure area in the Himalayas at the same time as Samuel Bourne. While his photographs are not as impressive, the narrative and stories are richer.Read more

The 3rd edition of this much sought after research memoir is now available. In November 2000 Christopher Penn discovered an old letter crumpled up behind the top drawer of his late father’s writing bureau. It led to the discovery of a family – his own – of which he had been unaware and knowledge of his great-grandfather Albert Thomas Watson Penn, who was one of the pioneering photographers of South India.Read more

Fred Bremner's memoir is one of the very few in Raj photography. It tells the story of a man brought by fate and accident to India. In making the best of it, he left behind an irreplaceable photographic record of Balochistan, Kashmir and Frontier.Read more

"This book provides a fascinating and rare glimpse into the life and work of a 19th century photographer in India, and is a unique and invaluable reference work for all collectors of his photographs."

This is no exaggeration; reading these pieces probably set many a people down the path into the discovery of Raj photography. Expertly brought back by Hugh Ashley Rayner, who presents the correctly edited version of Bourne's amazing narrative.Read more

Randolph Holmes (Holmes of Peshawar) wrote this book in 1921. It was published from Peshawar and printed in Bombay. The work and numerous images have been brought together in this wonderful reprint by Hugh Ashley Rayner's Pagoda Tree Press in Bath, England. This unique little institution is doing so much to bring these rare books back into circulation and expanding our understanding of their authors and their times.

Christopher Pinney's Camera Indica is the first book to look at photography from its inception as an alien form in colonial times through its assimilation, a century and a half later, into the most intimate recesses of Indian tradition.Read more