Queen Victoria was at the head of the Raj, Britain’s Indian empire, for much of her long reign. Passionately involved, she intervened in Indian politics, commissioned artists and photographers to record a landscape and people that she never saw herself, sent her sons as ambassadors to the subcontinent, and surrounded herself with the trappings of the Indian conquest, from the Koh-i-Noor diamond to her own Indian troop escort and servants. Indian politics and society were in turn fundamentally reshaped by her influence: maharajas vied for her favour, missionaries used her as a tool for conversion and Indian reformers turned to her as a symbol of justice and equality. She also became an object of fascination and veneration: hundreds of popular biographies and tributes emerged from the vernacular printing presses, and her two jubilees of 1887 and 1897 were celebrated with unprecedented gusto. In this new and original account, Miles Taylor charts the remarkable effects India had on the queen as well as the pivotal role she played in India. Drawing on official papers and an abundance of poems, songs, diaries and photographs, Taylor challenges the notion that Victoria enjoyed only ceremonial power and that India’s loyalty to her was without popular support. On the contrary, the rule of the queen-empress penetrated deep into Indian life and contributed significantly to the country’s modernisation, both political and economic. In this subtle portrayal of Victoria’s India, Taylor suggests that the Raj was one of her greatest successes.

H.H. is the spoilt, selfish, beautiful widow of the Maharaja of Mastipur. She lives with her dogs and her caretaker, Hans, in an enormous old house in Mussoorie, taking lovers and discarding them, drinking too much and fending off her reckless sons who are waiting hungrily for their inheritance. The seasons come and go, hotels burn down, cinemas shut shop and people leave the hill station never to return, but H.H. remains constant and indomitable. Observing her antics, often with disapproval, is her old friend Ruskin, who can never quite cut himself off from her. Melancholic, wry and full of charm, Maharani is a delightful novella about love, death and friendship.

"The Hindu Young World Goodbooks Award, Best picture book 2018 (illustration)."

This is a description of contemporary India and some of its recent history in the form of an autobiography. Rajmata Scindia is a member of the Indian Parliament. As a maharani she had thousands of servants and several enormous palaces. Since Independence, which marked the end of the supremacy of the Maharajas, she has emerged as one of India’s most popular political leaders, first with the Congress party and now with the opposition. Her appeal to the masses, who see her as an image of Mother India, amazes both her admirers and her critics.

Until the 1920s, to be a Maharani, wife to the Maharajah, was to be tantalizingly close to the power and glamour of the Raj, but locked away in purdah as near chattel. Even the educated, progressive Maharani of Baroda, Chimnabai—born into the aftermath of the 1857 Indian Mutiny—began her marriage this way, but her ravishing daughter, Indira, had other ideas. She became the Regent of Cooch Behar, one of the wealthiest regions of India while her daughter, Ayesha, was elected to the Indian Parliament. The lives of these influential women embodied the delicate interplay between rulers and ruled, race and culture, subservience and independence, Eastern and Western ideas, and ancient and modern ways of life in the bejeweled exuberance of Indian aristocratic life in the final days both of the Raj, and the British Empire. Tracing these larger than life characters as they bust every known stereotype, Lucy Moore creates a vivid picture of an emerging modern, democratic society in India and the tumultous period of Imperialism from which it arose. Through the sumptuous, adventurous lives of three generations of Indian queens—from the period following the Indian Mutiny of 1857 to the present, Lucy Moore traces the cultural and political changes that transformed their world.

"Thoroughly enjoyable and never dull. Brinda comes to life on each page in a manner seldom found in a story of a contemporary being. Elaine Williams deserves credit for an excellent job of writing. She has retained in every chapter a wealth of the maharani’s charm and personality."—The Houston Chronicle "A moving and muted account of a life in a transitional generation where East and West met . . . Touching and strange, this memoir gives fine glimpses into the Hindu culture, of worlds apart moving together, not without grief."—The Kirkus Bulletin

The incredible story of a Spanish woman blessed by destiny with an exceptional life.

Autobiografie van de adellijke Indiase politica.

In Maharnis Lucy Moore brilliantly recreates the lives of four princesses - two grandmothers, a mother and a daughter - of the Royal courts of India. Their extraordinary story takes in tiger hunts, exotic palaces and lavish ceremonies in India, as well as the glamorous international scene of the Edwardian and interwar era. It is also an intimate portrait of four remarkable women - Chimnabai, Sunity, Indira and Ayesha - who changed the world they lived in. Through their lives Lucy Moore tells the history of a nation during an era of great change: the rise and fall of the Raj from the Indian Mutiny to Independence and beyond.

Following the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean, a concerted effort was made to replace enslaved labour with indentured Indian labour. This is the story of one Indian woman's tragic experience in trying to immigrate to the Caribbean in the 19th century.