Handbook on Indian Company Law 1918 Kinney First Edition Butterworth Rare
 
Title & Author
 
Handbook on the Law Relating to Private Companies in India
By Alexander Kinney
 
Publisher & Date
 
Butterworth & Co. (India), Ltd., 6 Hastings Street, Calcutta
Printed by: Caledonian Printing Company, Limited, 3 Wellesley Place, Calcutta
Date: 1918
 
This copy is understood to be the first published edition. The publication date is explicitly stated as 1918, placing it within the late British colonial legal framework in India, when Indian company law was still closely aligned with English statute.
 
Edition
 
First Edition, 1918
 
Physical Description
 
Hardback, original publisher’s dark textured cloth
Gilt lettering and Butterworth publisher’s emblem to spine
Collation: xxviii + 273 pages
Size: approx. 22.2 × 14.4 × 2.6 cm
Weight: approx. 424 grams
 
Key Features
 
Extremely scarce early Indian company law handbook
Covers formation, management, director liabilities, winding-up
Includes tabular statutory references to Indian & English Acts
Addresses both public and private companies
Colonial-era Butterworth India imprint (far scarcer than UK issues)
Practical legal reference work rather than a general treatise
 
Historical & Bibliographic Context
 
This work represents a specialist legal manual produced during British rule in India, intended for lawyers, company secretaries, and administrators operating under the Companies Acts then in force.
 
Butterworth’s Indian imprint produced comparatively small print runs, most of which were heavily used and rarely survive in clean, complete condition. As such, early Indian legal handbooks, particularly first editions, are now notoriously difficult to source, with many absent from the market for years at a time.
 
Alexander Kinney’s handbook sits within a narrow field of early 20th-century Anglo-Indian commercial law texts, making it of interest to collectors of:
Colonial Indian legal history
Early corporate governance
Butterworth legal imprints
British Empire commercial administration
 
Condition Report
 
Exterior
Original cloth binding intact and structurally sound
Wear consistent with age (c.110 years), including:
Rubbing to edges and corners
Gentle lean to the spine
Small holes and short cloth splits at head and tail of spine
Marks and areas of discolouration
Gilt lettering remains legible
 
Interior
Pages very lightly tanned, bright for age
Clean, neat, and predominantly uncreased
Minor folds to a few pages
Small thread holes along inner margins on a handful of leaves (binding process)
Very small rips to front pastedown
No pen or pencil inscriptions
Text entirely unaffected
Binding tight and secure throughout
 
Completeness
 
Complete: all xxviii + 273 pages present
No loose or missing pages
 
Inscriptions / Provenance
 
No ownership inscriptions or library markings
Uncommon survival without institutional stamps, enhancing collectability
 
Final Collector’s Summary
 
A very rare first edition colonial Indian legal handbook, published by Butterworth’s Calcutta office in 1918. Scarce on the market, particularly in complete, clean condition, this is a highly desirable reference work for collectors of Anglo-Indian law, colonial administration, or early corporate regulation. A solid, honest survivor with strong scholarly and historical appeal.