Historic Lucknow

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I at one time thought that I should like to write a book about Lucknow. It has a personality of its own. It has not, like some of our great cities, a past which runs through the tangled histories of Hindu princedoms and Muslim invasions; it has seen little even of the Great Moguls; but it has in itself all the attractions are a period picture. Its buildings, its records and its traditions are all of the period; its character, as every resident of Oudh knows, was always "Nawabi" and remains "Nawabi". The historian, portraying a dynasty, which began with the first great Nawab Wazir and ended with the unhappy Wajid Ali Shah, may find in its buildings much that is artificial and even extravagant. But it is all in character; and its history is so near our own times, and is indeed linked so closely with part of our own record, that it never loses a strong human interest. It is no picture of far-off and half-understood things; we are looking all the time on the Lucknow of the Nawabs with their mixture of Oriental and Western extravagances; the Lucknow of Claud Martin, and above all of Henry Lawrence and the Residency.

When I first read Miss Hay's articles in The Pioneer I was glad to find that she was doing something of what I had once hoped to do; and I am delighted to know that we are now to have her article sin book form. It will appeal to all who have known Lucknow and have felt its peculiar charm.

Back of the Book

Lucknow has a remarkably fascinating history-fro the days of Nawabi splendour and ostentation to the struggle against the British-and was one of the main centers of the 1857 revolt. Each of the numerous architectural remains in the city bears testimony to some historical event or the other.

This book attempts to tell the history of the city through these monuments-be it the inimitable Imambara, the Residency, the Moti Mahal, the Walaiti Bagh or Begum Kothi The lucid writing style of the author enables the readers to experience Lucknow's fall from the days of opulence and splendour to those of the British domination brought about by the Nawab's lack of foresight and inefficiency.