In 1811, Maria Nugent left her four young children behind in England to accompany her husband, General George Nugent, on his posting as commander-in-chief in India. After a dizzying six months at the head of Calcutta society, the couple embarked on a 14-month tour of the British military stations in northern India, a journey that took them to the very edge of the imperial frontier. On these travels, Lady Nugent met a series of extraordinary figures from Indian history including Mir Jafar's widow, Munni Begum; the Indian grandmother of a British prime minister, the Begum Johnson; and the infamous adventuress and ruthless military leader, the Begum Samru. In Delhi, she enjoyed an audience with the Mughal Emperor, and in the royal zenana she was entertained by his wives and daughters, who were themselves politically astute women.

An account of Lady and General Nugent's remarkable journey across colonial India, this critical edition contextualizes Lady Nugent's East India Journal in the history of India and the British Empire, and the tradition of travel writing. It offers a window into the rarely glimpsed intimate social and domestic worlds of colonial households in British India, and also connects and compares Lady Nugent's time in India with her earlier voyage to Jamaica recorded in her West India journal.