The Private Life of an Eastern King

The writer William Knighton (c.1824-1900) spent much of his career in Sri Lanka and India. Published in 1855, this is an account of the court of the notorious Indian King Nussir-u-deen (c.1803-37), written from the viewpoint and using the testimony of an anonymous British member of the King's retinue. Richly descriptive, it is an intimate portrait of life in the service of a hedonistic sovereign so hated and paranoid that he feared his own family would try to poison him. He is characterised as a cruel and frivolous man who only trusted his sycophantic barber. As well as describing the lavish royal lifestyle, the narrator documents the King's thirst for hunting, for exotic-animal fights and for abusing and humiliating members of the royal family. This is a lurid and engrossing tale of a monarch in decline and the corruption and favouritism that led to his eventual assassination.