Dimensions
143 x 224 x 23mm
One small event in 18th-century India has proved an enduring myth, and a puzzle. In 1756 the Nawab of Bengal besieged the British East India Company's fort at Calcutta, and 146 people were locked in a tiny cell. The following morning, only 23 emerged: all the rest had died horribly of suffocation or thirst. That is the version enshrined in the history books for centuries. But was it true?
Jan Dalley takes us through a rattling history of the buccaneer 'hatmen' of the East India Company, tracing the growth of the fledgling city of Calcutta. She recreates the places and the people of this amazing story in vibrant detail - whether it is the Eurasian teenage bride Mary Carey, the lone woman survivor, or the weak English men running the Fort of Calcutta, or the imperious Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daulah. At the heart of this book is the fascinating process by which the story was told and re-told, and grew into one of those legends around which nations form their identity.
