Historic Lucknow

The author has made a good attempt to portray a beautiful picture of the ancient 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 of 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, presenting a dynasty which began with the first great Nawab Wazir and ended with unhappy Wajid Ali Shah, may see in its record only the story of decline, the artist may find in its buildings much that are artificial and even extravagant. It is no picture of faroff and halfunderstood things; we are looking all the time on the Lucknow of the Nawabs with their mixture of Oriental and Western extravagances. 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 illustrations require a word of explanation which the author has preserved from oblivion. The book will appeal to all who knows Lucknow and have felt its peculiar charm.