Book Description

Excerpt from Akbar, the Great Mogul: 1542-1605 Twenty-four years ago, when I was editing the Rambles and Recollections of Sir William Sleeman and was under the influence of that authors enthusiastic comment that 'Akbar has always appeared to me among sovereigns what Shakespeare was among poets', I recorded the opinion that 'the competent scholar who will undertake the exhaustive treatment of the life and reign of Akbar will be in possession of perhaps the finest great historical subject as yet unappropriated.' Since those words were printed in 1893 nobody has essayed to appropriate the subject. The hope that some day I might be able to take it up was always present to my mind, but other more urgent tasks prevented me from seriously attempting to realize my old half-formed project until January 1915, when I resolved to undertake a life of Akbar on a scale rather smaller than that at first contemplated. The result of my researches during two years is now submitted to the judgement of the public. The long delay in coming to close quarters with the subject has proved to be of the greatest advantage, both to myself and to my readers. The publication of sound, critical versions of Abu-l Fazl's Akbarn ma, Jahang r's authentic Memoirs, Gulbadan Begam's Memoirs, and certain minor works has rendered accessible in a convenient form all the principal Persian authorities for the reign. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."