This two-volume work is the third edition of a book first published as a single volume in 1757, expanded to two volumes in 1766, and republished in 1772. The author, John Henry Grose (active 1750-83), was born in England and went to Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in March 1750, to work as a servant and writer for the British East India Company. The book contains Grose's descriptions of 18th-century India, including his account of the war of 1756-63, in which the British East India Company largely eliminated France as a competitor for control of India and established the basis for British rule that was to last until the middle of the 20th century. In addition to Grose's account of events in India, the 1772 edition contains an unrelated account of a journey by John Carmichael, also of the British East India Company, from Aleppo, Syria, to Basra, Iraq.

Published in English translation in 1800, this valuable account presents a noted orientalist's observations on Indian geography, language and culture.

Published in 1793, traveller and physicist Alexis-Marie de Rochon's fascinating account was the first study of Madagascar by a European.