As a teenager, Liverpudlian Philip Meadows Taylor was sent away to India to serve an apprenticeship to a Bombay business tycoon. He remained in the country for much of his life, gaining unparalleled insight into India’s culture, languages and customs, knowledge he eventually put to use in a series of novels depicting important events in India’s history. The sprawling epic Tippoo Sultaun is set against the backdrop of the Anglo-Mysore War of the late eighteenth century.