White Mughals Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India

In 1798, James Achilles Kirkpatrick is the British Resident at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He arrived in India as an ambitious soldier in the East India Company's army, hoping to make his name through conquest and the subjection of the subcontinent.

Then he glimpses Kahir un-Nissa, whose name translates as 'Most excellent among Women'. Her great-uncle is the Nizam's Prime Minister, and she traces her line back to the Prophet. What follows is a passionate love affair that crosses the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its day, and it ends in tragedy.

This is narrative non-fiction by William Dalrymple, built on five years of writing and research. It brings to light a world that history has largely left unexplored, and it follows the lovers through seduction and betrayal.

The affair unfolds against shifting alliances and the manoeuvring of great powers, with the mercantile ambitions of the British on one side and the imperial dreams of Napoleon on the other. It reads with the scale of a nineteenth-century novel, though the people and events are real.