{"product_id":"the-baburnama-first-folio-society-edition","title":"The Baburnama (First Folio Society Edition)","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBABUR, Zahiruddin Muhammad\u003c\/strong\u003e (trans., ed. \u0026amp; annot. Wheeler M. Thackston; preface to illustrations J. P. Losty; intro. Salman Rushdie). \u003cem\u003eThe Baburnama.\u003c\/em\u003e London: The Folio Society, 2013.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eQuarto (approximately 279 × 184 mm). Quarter blue crushed Morocco leather. Spine lettered and decorated in gilt. Elaborately decorated illustrated boards. Top edge gilt. Blue slipcase. lviii, 540 pp. 47 pages of full-colour plates reproducing Mughal miniatures throughout; several regional maps preceding the text; genealogies and bibliography. \u003cstrong\u003eFirst Folio Society edition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eZahiruddin Muhammad Babur (1483–1530) was born in Fergana, in what is now Uzbekistan, the son of a Timurid prince who could trace his lineage to Timur the Great on his father's side and to Genghis Khan through his mother. He spent his youth losing and attempting to recover Samarkand — the great Timurid capital — before establishing himself at Kabul in 1504 and turning his ambitions south. In 1526, at the First Battle of Panipat, he defeated the Sultan of Ibrahim Lodi with a smaller force by deploying field artillery — a novelty in the subcontinent — and in a single afternoon laid the foundations of the Mughal Empire, which his descendants would rule for the next three centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eBaburnama\u003c\/em\u003e — Babur's memoir, written in Chagatai Turkish throughout his life and campaigns — is a document of extraordinary breadth and literary quality. It is the earliest known autobiography in Islamic literature, and it is not a conventional royal memoir: Babur describes his military campaigns with strategic precision, but he also records his observations of the natural world — the plants, birds, and animals of every country he passed through — his personal sorrows and enthusiasms, his friendships, his love of poetry (he was a distinguished poet in his own right), his garden designs, and his complicated feelings about the India he had conquered but never loved. His account of the loss of Samarkand as a young man is among the most affecting passages of autobiographical prose in any medieval literature. He describes weeping openly in a melon garden after crossing a river that marked the boundary of his ancestral homeland for the last time, and the reader weeps alongside him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eBabur died in 1530 having ruled northern India for only four years. His grandson Akbar, who extended the Mughal Empire to its greatest reach, commissioned a Persian translation of the \u003cem\u003eBaburnama\u003c\/em\u003e and a series of illustrated manuscripts whose miniatures depicted scenes from Babur's campaigns and observations. The forty-seven colour plates in this Folio Society edition reproduce the finest of these Mughal miniatures, with a preface by J. P. Losty, formerly of the British Library's Oriental collections, contextualising their production and their relationship to the text.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThe translation by Wheeler M. Thackston, Professor of the Practice in Persian and other Iranian Languages at Harvard University, is the definitive modern English rendering — complete, annotated, and rendered in prose of genuine lucidity. The introduction is by Salman Rushdie, whose own roots in the Mughal world make him an unusually apt guide to what Babur built and what his memoir means.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNear fine. \u003c\/strong\u003eSome very small and faint imperfections; slipcase shows mild shelf wear. Otherwise generally fine throughout.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThis book is currently not on display in store. If you would like more information or to arrange a viewing, please contact: \u003ca href=\"mailto:rarebooks@harryhartog.com.au\" title=\"Harry Hartog Rare Book Department\"\u003erarebooks@harryhartog.com.au\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCatalogue Number: HH000585\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49165409681651,"sku":"1110002991103","price":180.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0634\/4284\/5939\/files\/1_2356458b-1a90-4568-8bf7-e61866a82c86.png?v=1780020529","url":"https:\/\/www.harryhartog.com.au\/products\/the-baburnama-first-folio-society-edition","provider":"Harry Hartog Bookseller","version":"1.0","type":"link"}