Was led to select Bernier's Travels as the opening volume of my ORIENTAL MISCELLANY Series fer two reasons. An edition of this book had been promised, but never actually issued, by my Grandfather as one of the works to be included in that Miscellany, which may be regarded as the precursor of all the healthy, cheap, and popular literature of the present day; and, further, it was a book which I had ever admired, even before I was able, from actual experience, to fully appreciate its very remarkable accuracy. Strange to say, although frequently reprinted and translated, there does not exist, so far as I am aware, any satisfactory edition as to general editing, notes, and so forth, and this has, I hope, proved of advantage to me. For all that, I cannot claim to have approached, even partially, an ideally perfect edition; but, to quote Bernier's own words as applied to his map of The Mogol Empire, I prefer to hope that I have produced a work 'not absolutely correct, but merely less incorrect than others that I have seen.' For instance, a copy of the Urdti translation made in 1875 by Colonel Henry Moore, and lithographed in two volumes, at Umritsur and Moradabad in 1886 and. 1888 respectively, only reached my hands after the Bibliography had been printed off. Nor have I . been able as yet to find any copy of a Lucknow reprint of the Delhi edition, No. 22 of the list.

Mughal-Library