Published in 1844, this extraordinary book consists of the diaries of Robert Gully and Captain Denham, the Commander of the merchant vessel Ann, who were imprisoned in China in 1842, and notes exchanged between the two men (who were held captive in separate places). After some months of imprisonment, Gully was murdered, but Denham survived and was eventually released. The book, edited by 'a barrister' was designed to inform the British public of 'matters of which hitherto they have had slender but doubtful accounts', and to apply political and diplomatic pressure on the Chinese government,...

Moritz von Kotzebue (1789 1861), son of the German dramatist and an experienced seaman and soldier, who had faced Bonaparte's troops on the battlefield, travelled to the court of Fath Ali Shah Qajar (1772 1834), the king of Persia, with a Russian embassy in 1817. His account of the journey was published in German in 1819, and an English translation was published in the same year, claiming to offer a different perspective from the ordinary run of British writings on Persia. Covering the journey from St Petersburg through the Caucasus and down to Soltaniyeh, where the embassy meets the Shah,...

The Scottish natural philosopher and historian of science Sir David Brewster (1781 1868), best remembered as a friend of Sir Walter Scott and the inventor of the kaleidoscope, contributed reviews and articles on a huge variety of subjects to such periodicals as the Edinburgh Review and Fraser's Magazine. (His Letters on Natural Magic Addressed to Sir Walter Scott and his two-volume life of Isaac Newton are also reissued in this series). In this work, published in 1804, Brewster is determined to refute the allegations often directed against the Freemasons, as representing 'caverns of darkness,...

William Stubbs (1825 1901), one of the leading historians of his generation, pursued his academic research alongside his work as a clergyman. He was elected Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford in 1866 and appointed a bishop in 1884. Stubbs was a major figure in medieval English historiography, with special interests in legal and constitutional history. This work was first published in 1870. It begins with an outline of English constitutional history, which he urged should be part of the curriculum, and then presents documents from Roman times up to the thirteenth century. Eight...

John Venn (1834 1923), a leading British logician, moral scientist and historian of Cambridge, came from a noted family of clerics, although he resigned from the clergy as his philosophical studies led him away from Anglican orthodoxy. This family memoir, published in 1904, covers the careers of three centuries of Venn clergy, together with an outline of the family origins and pedigrees. The family came from Devon, where William Venn was ordained in 1595, and two of his sons followed him. Richard Venn was displaced and jailed during the Commonwealth. The author's father, John, was the founder...

After Scottish architect Robert Kerr (1823 1904) published this book in 1864, he was given a commission to build what would become his best-known work, Bearwood House, in Berkshire, for the then proprietor of The Times of London, John Walter. Kerr gives a thorough explanation of the elements involved in the planning and building of a 'comfortable English Residence of the better sort' in this book, which is divided into five parts. The first gives a detailed historical account of the 'domestic plan' from the eleventh century to the present day. The subsequent sections leave no corner of a...

This thorough, first-hand textbook of eighteenth-century naval law is still a central resource for historians of the subject.

Published in 1867, this book discusses the Crimean War from a pro-Turkish perspective. Sir Adolphus Slade (1804 77) covers the history of Ottoman military development as well as the origins of the Eastern Question, and the events leading to the outbreak of war. As a naval officer, whose Records of Travels in Turkey, Greece, &c., and of a Cruize in the Black Sea, with the Capitan Pasha is also reissued in this series, he was lent to the Turkish fleet in 1849 and took the name Mushaver Pasha. For seventeen years he worked to overhaul the navy, especially the defences of the Bosphorus, and his...

In 1857, when the Indian Mutiny broke out, Mark Thornhill (1822 1900) was the magistrate of Muttra, modern Mathura. His vivid account of ensuing events published in 1884 including a night ride to Agra through the rebel army and the developing tensions inside the fort, was well reviewed at the time, and, more recently, became one of the sources for J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur. Also including excursuses on the history and architecture of Agra from the time of Babur, and ghost stories pertaining to it Thornhill published a separate volume of Indian fairy tales the narrative is...

This first-hand account of the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824 6) was written by Captain Frederick Doveton of the Royal Madras Fusiliers and published in 1852. Intending to feed the contemporary British fascination with tales of Burma and its people, Doveton gives a brief history of the conflict, placing it into the context of the events leading up to the outbreak of the Second War (1852 3). He then offers a 'personal narrative' of his experiences, aimed at a popular rather than professional readership. His descriptions of Burmese life, landscape, and customs are full of anecdotes. These...