Begum of Bhopal. An Account of my Life (Gohur-I-Ikbal) … translated by C. H. Payne … With Map and Illustrations.

by SULTAN JAHAN

£1,000 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

SULTAN JAHAN, Begum of Bhopal. An Account of my Life (Gohur-I-Ikbal) … translated by C. H. Payne … With Map and Illustrations. London: John Murray. 1912. 8vo. Original cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, coat-of-arms in gilt on front cover; pp. xvi, 383, photogravure portrait-frontispiece with tissue guard, map in green and black, plates after photographs and paintings; extremities a touch worn, cloth a little marked, here and there a little spotted, otherwise very good. Very rare first expanded edition of this autobiographical memoir by a progressive female Indian ruler. The book had been published first in 1910; however, with only 302 pages; the translator's preface of the present edition being dated Bhopal, 1911. A continuation of two volumes appeared in India in 1920 and 1922 respectively, covering the rest of the author's life. 'Sultan Kaikhusrau Jahan, Begum of Bhopal (1858-1930) ruled the Indian state of Bhopal, now part of Madhya Pradesh, from 1901 to 1926. She was the only surviving child of Nawab Sultan Shah Jahan Begum Sahiba by her first husband, General Nasir ud-Daula, Nawab Baqi Muhammad Khan Bahadur. Among her achievements as a progressive and reforming leader, are the founding of educational institutions and the introduction of free compulsory primary education, in 1918. She overhauled taxation, the army, the police, the judiciary and prisons, expanded agriculture, and improved public sanitation and health by means of widespread inoculation and vaccinatio

• Binding: Hardcover

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