Begums, Thugs and White Mughals

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Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: The Journals of Fanny Parkes is a 2002 historical travel book edited by William Dalrymple. It collects the journals of Fanny Parkes, who lived in India from 1822 to 1846. This edition follows Dalrymple’s earlier White Mughals and continues his effort to bring ordinary voices from that era to light.

In his introduction, Dalrymple argues against viewing travel writing simply as conquest. He explains that Parkes loved India and, for a woman of her time, tried to understand and bridge the gap between Indians and the British. He notes that travel writing can be about genuine understanding and connection, not just domination, and he challenges readers to avoid Victorian stereotypes when looking at 18th- and early 19th-century India. The book uses Parkes’s voice to offer a more nuanced view of life and relations in that period.