3 Review(s)

About The Book : This sketch of the character of Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur Padshah is based almost entirely upon the most recent English translation of the Babur-nama (Memoirs of Babur) by Mrs. A. S. Beveridge, which was published by the Royal Asiatic Society in four fasciculi beween 1912 and 1921. As Mrs. Beveridge translated the record direct from the original Turki, her rendering reflects the Emperor's style more faithfully than the earlier translation by Leyden and Erskine of a Persian copy of the Memoirs. I have also consulted S. Lane-Poole's excellent study, Babar, in the Rulers of India Series (Clarendon Press). The quotations, the main facts, and the various episodes illustrating Babur's character are taken direct from Mrs. Beveridge's work, including her illuminating notes and appendices. About The Author : S. M. Edwardes (1873-1927),The premature death from bronchial pneumonia of Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, at the age of fiftyfour years, 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.