The Last Prince of Bengal: A Family's Journey from an Indian Palace to the Australian Outback - Hardcover

Lyn Innes

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1908906464 ISBN 13: 9781908906465

Publisher: The Westbourne Press, 2021

Synopsis

'A rich, delightful and unexpectedly thought-provoking saga’ - Richard Holmes

The Nawab Nazim was born into one of India's most powerful royal families. Three times the size of Great Britain, his kingdom ranged from the soaring Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. However, in 1880, he was forced to abdicate by the British authorities, who saw him as a threat and permanently abolished his titles. The Nawab's change in fortune marked the end of an era in India and left his secret English family abandoned.

The Last Prince of Bengal tells the true story of the Nawab Nazim, his wife and their descendants, as they sought by turns to befriend, settle in and eventually escape Britain. From glamourous receptions with Queen Victoria to a scandalous Muslim marriage with an English chambermaid; from Bengal tiger hunts to sheep farming in the harsh Australian outback, Lyn Innes recounts her ancestors extraordinary journey from royalty to relative anonymity.

Exposing complex prejudices regarding race, class and gender, this riveting account visits the extremes of British rule in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is also the intimate story of one family and their place in defining moments of recent Indian, British and Australian history.

About this title

About the Author

Lyn Innes is the great-grand daughter of His Royal Highness, the last Nawab Nizam of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Born and educated in Australia, she moved to North America and developed her interest in cultural nationalism, focusing on Irish, African, African American and Caribbean literatures. She earned a PhD from Cornell University, and taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she became associate editor for the journal Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe founded, OKIKE: An African Journal of New Writing. She also co-edited two volumes of African short stories with Achebe. Innes is currently Emeritus Professor of Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

From the Back Cover

The intimate story of the last King of Bengal and his family’s turbulent relationship with the British Empire at the height of its power.

On 15 May 1870, a Muslim wedding ceremony took place in one of London’s most prestigious hotels. The groom was Nawab Nizam, the much feted Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, whose Indian kingdom was three times the size of Britain. The bride was Sarah Vennell, a seventeen-year-old English woman employed as a chambermaid at the hotel.

The Nawab had been received by Emperor Napoleon III, Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales to petition the British Government for a repayment of the money and restitution of rights that had been forfeited to the Empire. When his petition failed, the Nawab was forced by the British to abdicate, and his titles were permanently abolished. A generation later, against the backdrop of WWI and the Great Depression, the Nawab’s son Prince Nusrat Ali Mirza defied the ‘White Australia’ immigration policy, changed his name to Norman Alan Mostyn, and travelled third class across the world in search of a better life.

Weaving in scandals, broken marriages and political machinations to enthralling effect, The Last King of Bengal is the extraordinary portrait of a royal family’s fall from power between 1840 and 1940. Great-granddaughter of the Nawab Nizam, Lyn Innes writes with great insight as she exposes the complex prejudices regarding class and race, work and family, religion and gender, at the heart of recent British and Indian history.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Westbourne Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908906464
• ISBN 13: 9781908906465
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256