Tara by Philip Meadows Taylor

The Times. For its rapid action, in fact, we have seldom read a better story, or one which is more full of incidents, sanguinary, trenchant, and robust.  The Daily Telegraph. A true and a wonderfully well-sustained piece of Oriental life and striking history.  The Spectator. This is a very remarkable book. It is a determined attempt to bring the interior Hindoo and Mussulman life of a great Mahratta province during the most exciting times home to the hearts and understandings of Englishmen, to interest them in people with whom they have nothing except human nature in common.  Morning Post. Tara is a unique work. There is nothing like it in the English literature of fiction. No other writer has ever attempted the portrayal of Indian life, society, and interests, entirely free from any European admixture of character or incident. The author himself now does so for the first time. The Confessions of a Thug related to British jurisdiction in India. Tippoo Sultan dealt with the gallant struggles of that monarch against the encroaching British power, but Tara is all Indian.  Saturday Review. It is seldom that we meet with a work of fiction executed with anything like the conscientious care and minute elaboration of Captain Meadows Taylors Indian Tale. His characters have mostly the clearness and individuality of portraits, and his scenery exhibits all the marked and decisive features of photographs taken on the spot. The work throughout is evidently that of a master of Oriental life and character in love with his subject, to whom nothing appears trivial or beneath notice that can illustrate the peculiar traits of Asiatic nature, or kindle an enthusiasm for knowing more of the history, manners, and usages of our fellow-subjects in the east.  The Standard. In no one part of the work has Captain Taylor shown more thorough art than in those pages in which he details the features of the Hindoo and Ma-homedan family life. He never overloads; his characters are not lay figures attired in triple folds of gorgeous robes to hide their nakedness. With a few subtle touches he shows us the interior life of each household, and the morning springs of every character, and he leaves us to fill in the obvious details for ourselves.   My Lord, The scenes and characters which i have endeavoured to depict in these volumes will be necessarily new and strange to you; but if they excite interest in the native annals of a country of which i find but little real knowledge existing, the object of the work will have been attained; while, by the kind courtesy which permits me to dedicate it to you, your excellency confers upon me a very sincere gratification.  I have the honour to be, Your Lordships very faithful servant,  MEADOWS TAYLOR.