Books in the Cambridge Library Collection - Perspectives from the Royal Asiatic Society series

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.

An honorary professor of Sanskrit at Calcutta's Fort William College, Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765-1837) became Britain's foremost orientalist during the early nineteenth century. Published in 1801, this three-volume compilation and translation of Brahman law was based on the unfinished work of the scholar Sir William Jones (1747-94).

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).

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.

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.

Still valuable today for its insight into the workings of the Siamese (Thai) court and its diplomatic relations in the mid-nineteenth century, this 1857 two-volume study was the most successful of Bowring's varied body of work. It also contains an introduction to the country of Siam and its people.

A celebrated lawyer, translator and poet, Sir William Jones (1746-94) wrote prolifically and authoritatively on politics, comparative linguistics and oriental literature. These thirteen volumes, first published in 1807, contain Jones' complete writings, including seminal works such as The Principles of Government (1782), 'On the Hindus' (1786), and Sacontala (1789).

Published in 1825, this is the first volume of a revised three-part dictionary of the Indo-Aryan language Bengali. Containing over 100,000 entries with English translations, it was intended to include every simple word in the language. The author's reference works on Marathi and Sanskrit are also reissued in this series.

This 1791 four-volume English translation of a key text of Islamic law was undertaken by Charles Hamilton (c.1752-92), an orientalist working for the East India Company. It is an important work in the administrative history of British India, reflecting the development of the Anglo-Islamic legal system.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) was a respected and enlightened administrator in India. This two-volume history, based on a range of Indian sources and first published in 1841, is infused with his lifelong understanding of Indian culture. It was the most popular work of its kind among the early Victorian public.

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.

Little is known of Captain Alexander Hamilton (b. before 1688, d. around 1733) other than what he tells us in this lively and compelling travelogue. First published in 1727, his invaluable historical and geographical picture of south-east Asia between 1688 and 1723 is spiced with tales of piracy and poisoning.

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.

This six-volume work on the history and philosophy of Sikhism, published in 1909 by Max Arthur Macauliffe (1841-1913), a former deputy commissioner of the Punjab, is considered his magnum opus. Volume 1 covers the life and compositions of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion.

Fluent in Arabic, Edward William Lane (1801-76) devoted his life's study to Egypt, where he lived for many years. This well-illustrated two-volume work was first published in 1836. Volume 1 covers climate, housing, education and domestic life; systems of religion, law and government; and language, literature, sciences and magic.

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 four-volume work, published in 1829, was the first major English translation of Persian chronicler Ferishta's monumental history of the Muslim presence in India. Notable as the most reliable of contemporary accounts of the Mughal empire, Ferishta's seventeenth-century work is a valuable source on life in India before British colonisation.

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.

The orientalist James Robert Ballantyne (1813-64) published this two-volume work in 1852. Intended for his Indian pupils, with Sanskrit translation and employing the style of Hindu philosophy, it is an excellent primary source on the educational aspects of British imperialism. Volume 1 introduces astronomy, geography, Newtonian motion, pneumatics, acoustics and optics.

A key figure in Benares (Varanasi), James Prinsep (1799-1840) was instrumental in expanding Western knowledge of Indian civilisation. Collected in two volumes in 1858 and edited by the numismatist Edward Thomas (1813-86), these essays are generously illustrated and display the enormous breadth of Prinsep's knowledge.