Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani and translated by Colonel W Miles, The History of Hydur Naik, otherwise styled Shums ul Moolk, Ameer ud Dowla, Nawaub Hydur Ali Khan Bahadoor, Hydur Jung; Nawaub of the Karnatic Balaghaut, London: W. H. Allen & Co., Leadenhall Street, 1842

xxxi, 513, [1] pp., including the engraved ornamental vignette on title; elaborate gilt-decorated Oriental Translation Fund presentation leaf
10.2 x 6.6 in (26 x 17 cm)

PROVENANCE
From the library of the son of the Author, Colonel William Miles.

The History of Hydur Naik—A Royal-Subscriber Oriental Translation Fund Volume, 1842

This copy was printed for His Majesty William I, King of the Netherlands, a subscriber to the Oriental Translation Fund.

This substantial 1842 volume presents the first English translation of an important Indo-Persian court chronicle devoted to Hyder Ali Khan Bahadoor (c.1720–1782), ruler of Mysore and father of Tipu Sultan. Written by Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani, a historian closely associated with the Mysorean court, the work constitutes Part I of the Nishan-i Haidari, a two-part Persian narrative later completed by a separate history of Tipu Sultan.

Translated by Colonel William Miles from a Persian manuscript held in the royal library of Her Most Gracious Majesty, the book was issued under the auspices of the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, an institution central to the nineteenth-century European study of Asian historical texts. The present copy is distinguished by an elaborate gilt presentation leaf stating that it was printed for King William I of the Netherlands, a documented royal subscriber to the Fund, situating the volume firmly within elite scholarly and diplomatic networks.

Internally, the work extends to over 500 pages of narrative, organised in chapters that trace Hyder Ali’s rise, military campaigns, administrative practices, court politics, and final illness and death. Rich in detail on logistics, revenue, and warfare, it offers a rare Persian-derived perspective on eighteenth-century Mysore, long utilised by later historians. As an object, it stands at the intersection of Indo-Persian historiography and British colonial scholarship, valued today for its documentary authority, institutional pedigree, and royal association.

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