Delhi Past And Present

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This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. Written to serve as a guide to visitors to Delhi, this book is quite exhaustive in its compass. Written in 1902 it starts with a brief account of Delhi in that year.. This book contains an excellent account of the history and architecture of Delhi. It will afford To readers and visitors not only A clear guide to all that is to see in Delhi but also an intelligent record of the History of the place in all its various phases.

H.C. Fanshawe (1852-1923) was a Author and Editor. He wrotes many books as Delhi past and present, The memoirs of Ann, Lady Fanshawe, wife of the Right Honble. Sir Richard Fanshawe, Bart., 1600-72., Shah Jahans' Delhi Past & Present etc.

IT has long been my wish to attempt to write an adequate Guide to Delhi, containing a brief General History of the city. The commencement of my notes on the subject dates from more than fifteen years back, and I had hoped to complete the material at leisure while in charge of the office of Commissioner of the Delhi Division. Distress and famine, however, in 1899 and 1900, and unforeseen events in the spring of 1901, seriously hampered my efforts in this direction; and the work which I can now offer to the public is consequently not so complete as I could have wished it to be.

The first Guides to Delhi, by Mr Beresford and Mr Cooper, were both sadly incomplete and sadly in- correct; Captain Harcourt's more useful Guide has long been out of print; the little Handbook by Mr H. G. Keene, which must have been appreciated by many hundreds of visitors to the place, must also, I think, have seemed to many of them too slight a work for so large a subject. Mr Fergusson's remarks upon the architecture of Delhi, and especially upon the old Pathan architecture, are of the highest value; and the information contained in Mr Thomas' "Pathan Kings of Delhi," is, with the "Selections from Muhammadan Historians," commenced by Sir Henry Elliott and completed by Professor Dowson, and with the Ain Akbari, edited by Mr Blochman, the most valuable of all works relating to Delhi. But these are not, of course, available to the ordinary traveller, nor, if they were, could they in all cases be used by him with advantage. Mr Keene's works upon the Moghal Rulers and the Decline of their Empire, also contain much interesting information. The contributions to archaeology contained in the Reports of the Archaeological Survey, issued by Major-General Sir Alexander Cunningham, R.E., are also of great value, but will be found, perhaps, by many to be somewhat dry reading. Mr Carr Stephens' "Archeology of Delhi," which is mainly a translation of the well-known work by Sir Syad Ahmad, the "Asar-i-Sanadid," was un- fortunately issued without being either duly corrected or brought up to date. In the present volume, I have attempted to combine with my own knowledge of the subject and of the place all that is of chief interest in the above works, together with a good deal of material taken from elsewhere, and I trust the matter so collected will be found instructive and interesting.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages