True Tales Of Old Lucknow Engaging Scoundrels
Published by Oxford University Press: New Delhi 2000 1st Edition
"Engaging Scoundrels: True Tales of Old Lucknow by Rosie Llewellyn-Jones is a richly textured exploration of the social underworld, forgotten personalities, and curious byways of Nawabi Lucknow, a city famed for its refinement, spectacle, and excess. Drawing on previously unused archival sources and family records, Llewellyn-Jones reconstructs a series of vivid historical episodes that move beyond the well-worn narratives of rulers and palaces to reveal barbers, entertainers, rogues, European interlopers, and the ordinary men and women who inhabited the city's margins. The book captures the paradox of Lucknow as both a place of extraordinary cultural sophistication and deep social inequality, set against the long eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Published as this 2000 Oxford University Press first edition, the work is notable for its scholarly authority combined with an engaging, almost novelistic style, further enhanced by illustrations and evocative maps that anchor the stories in the physical landscape of the city. Llewellyn-Jones, a leading historian of North India, weaves micro-history into broader themes of colonial encounter, cultural misunderstanding, and historical memory, offering fresh insight into how Lucknow was lived, perceived, and later remembered. This book would particularly appeal to readers of Indian social history, scholars of colonial urban culture, and admirers of finely written narrative history rooted in archival discovery."
Size 22cm x 14.5cm x 1.5cm - 196 pages
