Storia Do Mogor or Mogul India, 1633-1708 (In 4 Volumes)

A well-known traveller’s account of Mughal India, Manucci the Venetian’s work, which has been typically out of print for a long time ever since its appearance in 1907-9, is now offered in full and unexpurgated form. It is a faithful and vivid picture of Mediaeval India from 1656-1680. Like Tavernier and Brucer, two equally famous travellers’ works, Hedges’ Diary of Mughal Provincial Administration, Gemeli Careri’s visit to Aurangzeb’s camp in the Deccan in 1695 and Catrou’s Histoire Generale de l’ Empire du Mogol (1715), founded on the memoirs printed in these pages, this voluminous four-volume work is of both subjective and objective value which can hardly be overestimated. Written in a charming style, the book is truly a magnum opus of the celebrated author who visited India in 1656 and was associated with the Mughal Court for over half a century. He offers herein, besides other intimate details, an account of Hindu religion, manners, customs, and description of Muhammadan weddings and funerals. The book is a veritable mine of otherwise inaccessible data about a period of Indian history which everyone should know. Comprehensive in its groundwork and masterly and lucid in its details, Manucci’s book, as presented in its English garb by Irvine, ranks among the most authoritative sources at the disposal of the historian of the future. A painstaking exploration of life as lived in an important period of Mughal history, the book is crowded with facts carefully and ably translated and edited with historical footnotes which help in understanding them and their relation to the administrative, political and social condition of the time. Few MSS, were more worth translating and few have had a better translator.