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The Last Mughal

The Fall of Delhi, 1857

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About this listen

 Bloomsbury presents this Unabridged recording of The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple, read by Sagar Arya

In May 1857 India’s flourishing capital became the centre of the bloodiest rebellion the British Empire had ever faced. Once a city of cultural brilliance and learning, Delhi was reduced to a battered, empty ruin, and its ruler – Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last of the Great Mughals – was thrown into exile. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj’s Stalingrad: a fight to the death between two powers, neither of whom could retreat.

The Last Mughal tells the story of the doomed Mughal capital, its tragic destruction, and the individuals caught up in one of the most terrible upheavals in history, as an army mutiny was transformed into the largest anti-colonial uprising to take place anywhere in the world in the entire course of the nineteenth century.

WINNER OF THE DUFF COOPER MEMORIAL PRIZE | LONGLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE
'Indispensable reading on both India and the Empire' Daily Telegraph
'Brims with life, colour and complexity . . . outstanding' Evening Standard
‘A compulsively readable masterpiece’ Brian Urquhart, The New York Review of Books
A stunning and bloody history of nineteenth-century India and the reign of the Last Mughal.©2009 William Dalrymple (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Asia Europe Great Britain India Law South Asia World Imperialism Middle East British Empire
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Well written and interesting. Develops the situation prior to the mutiny well although the impact of differing members of the royal family could have been clearer.
Overall very enjoyable and informative.

Gentle prose

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The account of the events, written by William Dalrymple, is good, but the reader sounds a bit like Peter Sellers doing an Indian impression which really spoiled the book for me. To understand what I mean, listen to the reader of the abridged version of this book; I enjoyed that so much it led me buying the longer version, but unfortunately the reader wasn't the same and delivered his performance in a way that was pretty offputting.

It's a pretty interesting story, somewhat spoiled by the performance.

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