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Major Evans Bell, The Annexation Of The Punjab And The Maharajah Duleep Singh By Major Evans Bell, London: Trubner and Co., 1882

108 pages; original red embossed cloth with gilt titles to front and spine
8.75 x 6 x 0.25 in (22.5 x 15 x 1 cm)

Autograph note Signed by Maharajah Duleep Singh on a single sheet of laid paper written on one side on the letterhead of Royal Hotel, Lowestoft measuring 20.2 x 12.7 cm which is pasted on the front end paper, c.1855-85.

Inscribed "Do not forward / any letters, as I may / return to town any / day this week. / Duleep Singh".

The book provides information on 'Maharajah Duleep Singh', 'annexation of Punjaub', and other letters and articles from times. It also provides a detailed description of the political and military events that led to the annexation of the Punjab, including the two Anglo-Sikh Wars and the role played by the British commanders and officials in these conflicts. It also examines the impact of British rule on the Punjab and its people, including the imposition of new laws and regulations and the transformation of the region's economy.

It also includes a detailed biography of Maharajah Duleep Singh, who was taken into British custody after the annexation of the Punjab. It describes his upbringing as a Sikh prince, his interactions with British officials, and his eventual conversion to Christianity. The book also covers his efforts to regain his lost kingdom, his visits to India and his subsequent death in Paris.

The book also provides a valuable historical account of the British annexation of the Sikh Empire and the impact of this event on the region and its people. It is still regarded as an important source of information for scholars and researchers interested in the history of South Asia and the British Empire.

Thomas Evans Bell (11 November 1825 - 12 September 1887) was a writer and English Indian army officer.

He was raised in Wandsworth, London, as the son of William Bell. In 1841, he joined the East India Company in Madras. He was a secularist and admirer of George Jacob Holyoake, who included Bell on a short list of persons who had done the most for the free-thought movement in 1856, and he had a stake in Holyoake's "British Secular Institute of Secularism and Propaganda." He delivered the inaugural Free Discussion Festival address at the City Road Hall of Science in 1851. He was also a John Chapman author.

Bell was a harsh opponent of the East India Company and its influence on Indian peasantry. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Bell was fired from his job in Nagpur for complaining about the treatment of the Nagpur kingdom's Ranis over the head of his immediate superior. He was secretary of the Madras Literary Society in the early 1860s and edited the Madras Journal in 1861. When Whitley Stokes arrived to India, he correctly recognised an anonymous translator of Omar Khayyám as Edward FitzGerald and named him in the Journal, years before this information was widely known. Stokes credited the Madras (pirate) edition of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat to Bell in 1864.

In 1866, Bell retired on half salary. In 1866, he was a member of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage. In 1871 and 1875, he served on the East India Association's council, where he advocated trust as an imperial policy principle.

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