The Golden Calm: An English Lady's Life in Moghul Delhi Reminiscences

Emily Annie Theophila Metcalfe, the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Metcalfe, was born at Meerut in the North West Provinces, India, in 1830. Her earliest recollections were of the family home in Delhi, where she spent most of her childhood until the age of five, when she was sent home to England; she was not to return to India until early in 1848, when she was seventeen. Just over two years later, at the age of nineteen, she married Sir Edward Clive Bayley in Delhi. Her reminiscences, skilfully edited by M.M. Kaye, provide a sparkling account of a young lady growing to maturity amid the flamboyant finery of the dying Moghul Empire. Through her eyes we see a world fascinatingly remote from our own in terms of both space and time. But an extra dimension is added by the inclusion of over 110 facsimile pages of the "Delhie Book" compiled by her father, Sir Thomas Metcalfe, who commissioned illustrations from some of the finest of the Delhi artists and wrote detailed descriptions of the places and personages around him. 217p. Large format