Bøger i Cambridge Library Collection - Perspectives from the Royal Asiatic Society serien

Published in 1820, this acclaimed three-volume work by the administrator and ethnologist John Crawfurd (1783-1868) offers insight into the peoples and cultures of the Indonesian islands, principally Java. Volume 1 examines the character and manners of the islanders as well as their arts, sciences, medicine, and agricultural techniques.

Published 1810-17, this is a three-volume work on the history of Mysore to 1799 by former British political resident Mark Wilks (c.1760-1831). Volume 1 details the early Hindu dynasties, the coming of Islam, the Mughal era, the rise of Hyder Ali and Mysore's re-emergence as a separate kingdom.

First published in 1806, this is a comprehensive grammar of the Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit. Reissued here in a two-volume set, Volume 1 contains Books 1-3 of the work, covering characters, pronouns and verbs. Carey's reference works on Marathi and Bengali are also reissued in this series.

First published in 1871, this is a detailed geographical study of India's Buddhist period, up to the seventh century CE. Written by the influential archaeologist Sir Alexander Cunningham (1814-93), it draws on material ranging from the campaigns of Alexander the Great to the travels of the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang.

First published in 1793, this materia medica - a book of collected knowledge about medicines and their properties - presents information on over 1,000 medicines used in India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It contains entries from an earlier version in Persian, Arabic and Hindi, along with English translations.

Fort William College was an influential academy of oriental languages established in Calcutta in 1800 by the British colonial administrator Richard Wellesley (1760-1842). Compiled as a tribute to his work and published in 1819, this book comprises official records of the college's memorable events, along with its foundational principles.

James Fergusson (1808-86) became one of the most respected architectural historians of his generation. This 1880 collaboration with the young archaeologist James Burgess (1832-1916) is the culmination of his pioneering studies of India's cave temples. It remains of relevance to students of Indian architecture and history.

Between 1797 and 1800, editor and contributor William Ouseley (1767-1842) published this three-volume miscellany of scholarly essays by a number of writers. Volume 3 includes an exegesis on Hafez, a catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts, and essays on Chinese dialogue and the Korean alphabet.

Between 1797 and 1800, editor and contributor William Ouseley (1767-1842) published this three-volume miscellany of scholarly essays by a number of writers. Volume 2 includes essays on Chinese vocabulary, the Eastern origin of mankind and Persian lyric poetry.

Between 1797 and 1800, editor and contributor William Ouseley (1767-1842) published this three-volume miscellany of scholarly essays by a number of writers. Volume 1 includes translations of poetry and stories from Arabic and Persian, and essays on manuscript collation, Moroccan Arabic and the poet Hafez.

The Mughal emperor Humayun (1508-56) ruled over parts of modern-day India, Afghanistan and Pakistan during his reign. His water-bearer, Jauhar, served him throughout his rule, and later wrote this memoir of his master's campaigns and character. This English translation by Charles Stewart (1764-1837) was first published in 1832.

This 1868 study of the Dervish orders of the Near East forms a valuable introduction to a people and their history, philosophy, culture and practices. It was written by the diplomat and scholar John Porter Brown (1814-72), based on his local knowledge and researches during his time in Constantinople.

Persian mathematician Mohammed ben Musa (c.780-c.850) is considered to be one of the fathers of algebra. His Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing gave us the word 'algebra' and introduced modern algebraic methods. This is the 1831 translation into English by the orientalist Friedrich August Rosen (1805-37).

Reissued in one volume, these two fascinating texts on Anglo-Indian cookery - published in 1831 and 1895 respectively, by Sandford Arnot of the London Oriental Institution and Henrietta Hervey, the wife of a colonial officer - were written for the instruction of returning expatriates.

Published in 1822, this grammar of high Tamil, first prepared in 1730, allows students to read the dialect's ancient literature. C. G. Beschi (1680-1747) was a brilliant and instinctive linguist and scholar, himself a composer of Tamil poetry, and his work remains important for its sensitivity to the classical language.

Published in 1812, this work is the product of thorough first-hand and textual study by a noted scholar and expert on the Malayan language. It remains valuable today as a history as well as a dictionary, including regional variations and specialised terms, as well as original Malay texts.

This 1810 publication of translations of Jimutavahana's Dayabhaga and a section of Vijnaneshwara's Mitakshara was part of a pioneering movement in the study of Sanskrit literature. It was vital to the East India Company's civil courts, where the British sought to use processes that were already customary on the subcontinent.

First published in 1776, this English translation of the Hindu legal code was prepared by an employee of the East India Company. Its purpose was to make the code understandable to British authorities, and to show them that it was fully adequate for application in the Bengal region.

The Mughal emperor Timur (1336-1405) conquered large parts of central Asia in the fourteenth century. First published in 1830, these are his purported memoirs, translated into English by the orientalist Charles Stewart (1764-1837). The work covers the period up to 1375, when Timur was in his forties.

Arab scholar Abd-Allatif (1162-1231) wrote this thorough account of Egypt when the country was rarely visited by Europeans. It covers matters ranging from natural history and medicine to culture and domestic economy. Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838) translated and edited this version, first published in French in 1810.

As a nobleman of the court of Aurangzeb (1618-1707), Iradat Khan (c.1649-1716) witnessed the decline of the Mughal empire. First published in 1786, these are his memoirs, translated by Jonathan Scott (1754-1829), an East India Company captain who wanted to educate the British about India's history.

First published in 1778, this was the one of the first grammars of Bengali. It provides detailed accounts of all aspects of the language, from its alphabet to its case and tense systems, verbs, and word order. It was considered a landmark in the study of the Indo-European language family.

This 1826 Burmese-English dictionary was compiled from the manuscripts of American Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson (1788-1850) and his colleagues Felix Carey and James Coleman. It was a pioneering work, born of firm belief in the evangelising power of the written word, and providing the basis for Judson's later great bilingual dictionary.

This Malay-English dictionary was published in 1801, and is largely the same in content as the first one produced 100 years earlier by Thomas Bowrey. It is a compendium of working Malay, representing early attempts to make a dictionary to serve the new colonial interests in the Malay Peninsula.

This 1829 translation of what is now known to be a flawed account of incidents from the first fifteen years of the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir (1569-1627) offers a colourful, if not always factually accurate, description of the ruler's character, politics and actions.