Description
Signed first edition of The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India, by the Indian political leader, poet and civil rights activist, Sarojini Naidu.
Octavo, xvii, [1], 231pp. Red cloth, title in gilt on spine, decorative gilt illustration on cover. No additional printings on copyright page. Frontispiece portrait with tissue cover, light foxing. Solid text block, free of any marks or notation. Decorative endpapers. In the publisher’s dust jacket, light foxing to rear panel, bright illustrations with gilt embellishments. This copy is signed on the half-title by the author, dated 1929.
Titled the “Nightingale of India” by Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) followed Gandhi as the President of the Indian National Congress. She was a political activist, advocating for women’s emancipation and national independence from colonial rule. Following India’s independence from British rule in 1947, Naidu was appointed the Governor of the United Provinces, becoming India’s first woman governor. She died in 1949, but her legacy as a poet and activist remains to this day.
