This book by S. M. Edwards covers a brief record of persons whom he had come across during his seven years of service as a Government official in Bombay. The chapters inside the book also contain accounts of various things that the author had experienced throughout the period. Some of the chapters includeThe Spirit of Chandrabai, Bombay Scenes, Shadows of Night, The Birthplace of Shivaji, The Story of Imtiazan, Citizens of Bombay, The Tilak Riots and the Bombay Mohurrum. The book ""By-Ways of Bombay"" has been considered important throughout the human history.
S. M. Edwardes (Stephen Meredyth) (1873-1927), The premature death from bronchial pneumonia of Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, at the age of fiftyfour years, which took place on January at Fielden, near Boxmoor, is a loss to the study of Indian history and archaeology deeply to be deplored. Mr. Edwardes was a son of the Rev. Stephen Edwardes, fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and was educated at Eton and at Christ Church. In 1894 he passed into the Indian Civil Service, and was posted to the Bombay Presidency. The intimate acquaintance with conditions among the native population of the city which he soon acquired, and his profound knowledge of its history, on which he was widely recognised as the foremost authority, were employed to full advantage in his census volume of 1901, the additional volumes of the “Gazetteer” which he compiled between 1906 and 1910, and his “Rise of Bombay” and “Byways of Bombay.” This knowledge, in combination with his personal qualities, made him eminently fitted for the post of Commissioner of Police, to which he was appointed in 1910. His well-balanced and admirably judicious “Crime in India,”published in 1925, showed that no one could have been better qualified to represent India at the Geneva conference on traffic in women and children which he attended in 1921. About the Illustrations: M. V. Dhurandhar (1867-1944), was an Indian painter and postcard artist from the British colonial era. Among his most popular paintings are his illustrations of average colonial-era women. His popular works include documenting the city of Bombay and its people, as well as painting scenes from Hindu mythology and Omar Khayyam series. A prolific artist, Dhurandhar is said to have made some thousands of paintings and illustrations, including some that were turned into lithographic prints, such as his illustrations for the book Women of India by Otto Rothfield (1920).Dhurandhar also designed postcards, provided the illustrations for the S. M. Edwardes By-Ways of Bombay (1912) and C. A. Kincaid's Deccan Nursery Tales, besides drawing cartoons for the Gujarati periodicals Aram and Bhoot. He also made religious illustrations published by the Ravi Varma Press. He wrote an autobiography in Marathi about his years at the J.J. School. In 1926, he was commissioned by the ruler of Aundh State, Maharaja Bhawanrao Pantpratinidhi to make paintings on the life of Shivaji.
