The Life Of William  Dampier

A Pirate Of Exquisite Mind

A rip-roaring swashbuckler about a forgotten 17th century English hero who, starting as a poor, piratical buccaneer, became a famed round-the-world explorer.

Lively... extraordinary life - an unlikely combination of plundering and pioneering achievements in natural history and exploration

Gripping and well-researched... An impressive achievement

This long overdue biography wonderfully brings to life one of the most important explorers of the seventeenth century

Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea

This eloquently enthusiastic biography, besides charting Dampier's astonishing achievements, offers fascinating information about his times

Diana Preston is an Oxford-trained historian, writer, and broadcaster who lives in London. She is the author of The Road to Culloden Moor; A First Rate Tragedy: Robert Falcon Scott and the Race to the South Pole; The Boxer Rebellion and Wilful Murder: The Sinking of the Lusitania. Michael Preston, Diana Preston's husband, read English at Oxford University and is now an historian and traveller.

William Dampier, (1651-1715), was an English adventurer and pirate who preyed on ships on the Spanish Main. Poor and ill-educated and determined to make his fortune, he nonetheless had a passion for exploration and scientific research. 
 
Dampier was the first to map the winds and currents of the world's oceans; led the first recorded party of Englishmen to set foot on Australia - 80 years before Cook; wrote about Galapagos wildlife 150 years before Darwin, who drew on Dampier's notes in his own work; was the first travel writer: A NEW VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD was instant bestseller when it was published in 1697 - said to have influenced the novels of Swift and Defoe. 
 
A man full of contradictions: he who achieved so much 'blew it' later in life, declining into scandal, failure and even farce. A unique man ahead of his time, he lived a large part of his life among pirates yet managed to preserve what Coleridge called his "exquisite refinement of mind". A classic example of the best narrative history.

Diana Preston

Michael Preston

The Prestons' delightful and definitive book tells the monument's full, extraordinary story, not only of the vast undertaking of the building itself, but also the operatic sweep of the dynastic and romantic convulsions behind the project . . . Combines tremendous scholarship with a host of cracking stories well told.

The Prestons' richly patterned chintz of a book also delivers a romantic account of the Mughal empire as a whole.

A hugely entertaining book packed with information, often irrelevant but still fascinating, about the Mughal emperors of India and in particular Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal.

An enthralling history of extraordinary kings and their peerlessly cultured and opulent lives . . . truly unforgettable.

A highly readable potted history of the Moghul empire that produced this extraordinary building...thorougly enjoyable.

The Prestons tell the story engagingly and well, providing a lucid narrative sweep

Considerable research leavened by colourful story-telling...every page offers a vivid image or telling detail that captures the deeply weird and violent world of the Moghuls.

The Story of the Taj Mahal

In 1631, the heartbroken Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, ordered the construction of a monument of unsurpassed splendour and majesty in memory of his beloved wife. Theirs was an extraordinary story of passionate love: although almost constantly pregnant - she bore him fourteen children - Mumtaz Mahal followed her husband on every military campaign.But then Mumtaz died in childbirth. Blinded by grief, Shah Jahan created an exquisite and extravagant memorial for her on the banks of the river Jumna. The Taj Mahal took twenty years to build and depleted the Moghul treasuries.But Shah Jahan was to pay a greater price for his obsession. He ended his days imprisoned by his own son in Agra Fort, gazing across the river at the monument to his love. The building of the Taj Mahal had set brother against brother and son against father in a savage conflict that pushed the seventeenth century's most powerful empire into irreversible decline.

Michael Preston

Praise for A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time

The Prestons' delightful and definitive book tells the monument's full, extraordinary story, not only of the vast undertaking of the building itself, but also the operatic sweep of the dynastic and romantic convulsi ...

The Prestons' richly patterned chintz of a book also delivers a romantic account of the Mughal empire as a whole.

A hugely entertaining book packed with information, often irrelevant but still fascinating, about the Mughal emperors of India and in particular Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal.

The Prestons' delightful and definitive book tells the monument's full, extraordinary story, not only of the vast undertaking of the building itself, but also the operatic sweep of the dynastic and romantic convulsi ...

The Prestons' richly patterned chintz of a book also delivers a romantic account of the Mughal empire as a whole.

A hugely entertaining book packed with information, often irrelevant but still fascinating, about the Mughal emperors of India and in particular Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal.

The Prestons' delightful and definitive book tells the monument's full, extraordinary story, not only of the vast undertaking of the building itself, but also the operatic sweep of the dynastic and romantic convulsi ...

The Prestons' richly patterned chintz of a book also delivers a romantic account of the Mughal empire as a whole.

A hugely entertaining book packed with information, often irrelevant but still fascinating, about the Mughal emperors of India and in particular Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal.

Books by Michael Preston

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