The B bur-n ma in English ("Memoirs of B bur").: Translated from the original Turki Text of Zahiru'd-din Muhammad B bur Padshah Ghazi by Annette Susannah Beveridge.

London: Luzac & Co.,, 1922. A landmark edition First edition in book form of this landmark version of the B burn ma, the earliest example of autobiographical writing in world literature, the diary of Zah r-ud-D n Muhammad B bur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and descendant of Timur, translated into English directly from the original Chagatai Turkish, the spoken language of the Andijan-Timurids; complete sets are extremely uncommon. Under the patronage of Akbar the Great (reigned 1556-1605) the B burn ma was translated into Persian, the literary language of the Mughal court, and English translations had been published that drew on that source. In her preface Beveridge describes the language of the Chagatai original as "terse, word-thrifty, restrained and lucid [which] comes over neatly into Saxon English, perhaps through primal affinities". Her version was originally published in four installments between 1912 and 1921 (the "four fasciculi" of the title). Some copies are dated 1921, have a different setting of the title page and give the publisher's address as 40 Great Russell Street and not 46, as in the present copy. After study at the Unitarian-led Bedford College, the independently-minded Annette Beveridge (née Akroyd, 1842-1949) went to India to start a school for Hindu girls, "a mission inspired in part by Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884), leader of the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reformist sect with historic ties to the Unitarians. In a visit to England in 1870 Sen had urged well-trained Englishwomen to come to India to provide a secular education for Indian women; in October of 1872 Annette Akroyd sailed for Calcutta determined not to be a part of the Anglo-Indian set" (ODNB). However, she fell out with Sen and ran the school alone until 1875. The combination of her husband's scholarly interests and her own increasing deafness promoted a turn to scholarship and she embarked on a series of translations. Her finest work is her version of the B burn ma, a project which "consumed nearly twenty years of her life because of the research required on fundamental matters, such as establishing the authentic text and knowledge of a language then little known in the West... Her translation is not felicitous from a literary point of view, but the hallmarks of her work - the most complete of indices, and scrupulous footnotes and appendices on matters of fact - have made it invaluable for later scholars" (ibid.). 2 volumes, octavo (208 x 137 mm). Contemporary moderate brown cloth, red leather labels. 5 half-tone plates and 2 plans (of Chanderi and Gwalior). Labels a little dry and slightly flaked, a touch of foxing to endpapers. A very good set, with a number of scholarly annotations between pp. 10 and 26 in vol. I, suggestive of someone proficient in Persian.