A History of India under the Two First Sovereigns of the House of Taimur, Baber and Humayun

This two-volume work by the Scots orientalist and historian William Erskine (1773-1852) was published posthumously by his son in 1854. It describes the history of India under the Mughal rulers Babur and his son Humayun, descendants of Taimur (Tamburlane), and is acknowledged as one of the earliest western scholarly accounts of Mughal rulers in India. Erskine had also translated the Memoirs of Emperor Babar (1826) and completed John Malcolm’s biography of Lord Clive (1836). Volume 2 deals with the history of Humayun, beginning with his accession upon his father’s death, his expulsion from India by rivals and his exile in Persia from 1543. He returned in 1555 to his court in Delhi, with Persian support which had a profound influence on the language, art and culture of India, and he subsequently extended his empire before dying after a fall in 1556.