INDIA DIRECTORY, OR DIRECTIONS FOR SAILING TO AND FROM THE EAST INDIES, CHINA, AUSTRALIA, AND THE INTERJACENT PORTS OF AFRICA AND SOUTH AMERICA: ORIGINALLY COMPILED FROM THE JOURNALS OF THE HONOURABLE COMPANY'S SHIPS, AND FROM OBSERVATIONS AND REMARKS, RESULTING FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF TWENTY-ONE YEARS IN THE NAVIGATION OF THOSE SEAS, BY JAMES HORSBURGH, F.R.S R.A.S R.G.S
WM. H. Allen and Co., Booksellers to the Honourable East India Company, London, ca. 1852

English print on paper, sixth edition, volume one, 650 numbered pages, each folio with approx. 56ll to the printed page, volume two with 890 numbered pages, each folio with approx. 47ll to the printed page in larger size, both in contemporary half calf binding, gilt, re-backed with the old backs laid down, previous ownership inscription to verso of half-title, ‘"E. B. Turnbull, Salem, Mass, Oct. 14, 84", 4to., the folios 27.1cm x 21cm.

James Horsburgh (b.1762 - d.1836) was a Scottish hydrographer who worked for the British East India Company. Over the course of more than twenty years, Horburgh charted much of China, Southeast Asia, and the Indian regions. The India Directory was first published as Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, China, New Holland, Cape of Good Hope, published in 1809–1811. The work fast became the standard guide for mariners venturing in the region and was widely reproduced. Later editions of the guide see the name change to India Directory as well as the change of New Holland into Australia which gradually replaced the Dutch name during the late 1810s and 1820s.

The India Directory, in its two volumes, amounts to a massive navigational directory, with exhaustive information on the Arabian and Red Sea, as well as the Persian Gulf. It further includes entries on Sharjah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Hormuz.