The Adventures of Akbar - Softcover

Steel, Flora A

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1421888327 ISBN 13: 9781421888323

Publisher: 1st World Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

Bismillah Al-la-hu Akbar! These queer-looking, queer-sounding words, which in Arabic mean "thanks be to God," were shrilled out at the very top of Head-nurse's voice. Had she been in a room they would have filled it and echoed back from the walls; for she was a big, deep-chested woman. But she was only in a tent; a small tent, which had been pitched in a hurry in an out-of-the-way valley among the low hills that lead from the wide plains of India to Afghanistan. For Head-nurse's master and mistress, King Humayon and Queen Humeeda, with their thirteen months' old little son, Prince Akbar, were flying for their lives before their enemies. And these enemies were led by Humayon's own brothers, Prince Kumran, Askurry and Hindal. It is a long story, and a sad story, too, how Humayon, so brave, so clever, so courteous, fell into misfortune by his own fault, and had to fly from his beautiful palaces at Delhi and wander for years, pursued like a hare, amid the sandy deserts and pathless plains of Western India.

About this title

About the Author

Flora Annie Steel (1847 – 1929) was an English writer who lived in British India for 22 years. She was noted especially for writing books set in India or otherwise connected with it. Flora Annie Steel was interested in relating to all classes of Indian society. The birth of her daughter gave her a chance to interact with local women and learn their language. She encouraged the production of local handicrafts and collected folk-tales, a collection of which she published in 1894. Her interest in schools and the education of women gave her a special insight into native life and character. A year before leaving India, she coauthored and published The Complete Indian Housekeeper, giving detailed directions to European women on all aspects of household management in India. In 1889 the family moved back to Scotland, and she continued her writing there. Some of her best work, according to the 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica, is contained in two collections of short stories, From the Five Rivers and Tales of the Punjab. Her novel On the Face of the Waters (1896) describes incidents in the Indian Mutiny. She also wrote a popular history of India. John F. Riddick describes Steel's The Hosts of the Lord as one of the "three significant works" produced by Anglo-Indian writers on Indian missionaries, along with The Old Missionary (1895) by William Wilson Hunter and Idolatry (1909) by Alice Perrin. Among her other literary associates in India was Bithia Mary Croker.

About this edition

• Publisher: 1st World Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1421888327
• ISBN 13: 9781421888323
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 188