It had long been my dream to provide to my readers a book. Something light and compact, which they can carry with them on their visit to the Residency.
Initially, I published an e-book for Kindle. It was nice but I was not happy with the result. The pictures did not work and the text was not easy to read. Besides, how many people will walk around the Residency with a Kindle? Possibly some, but after stumbling along through the bushes and possibly dropping the erstwhile machine it would be more of hinderance than a help.
So a book it had to be.
With the help of my partner, who did all the editing, the formatting and ultimately provided a map of the Residency drawn by himself for which I am eternally grateful, the book was published on Amazon as A Guide to the Lucknow Residency.
The book is divided not into chapters per say, but into posts, with each post having a separate description and where possible, a photograph. As many of you know, some posts have been obliterated. In this case, I chose pictures fitting to the place, so for Gubbins, there is what I presume is the tree that earned it's salt, for Grants' Bastion there is a marker.. the idea is that visitors can orientate themselves on something in the general area and then read the description.
The descriptions are set up in the same way as on this blog - what the post looked like before it was smashed to bits and anecdotes from those of the besieged who wrote of their experiences. It was unfortunately not possible for me to add all the information found on this blog into the book. That would have made it less of a guide and more of a tome, which, my dear readers, would have been an ordeal to carry about.
The book is 146 pages long and contains as much information as is relevant to a guide book of the grounds. There is no guide to the museum which I feel is rather self-explanatory. Perhaps in a different version and after another visit, I could add such a description. Nor is there a detailed chapter on the graves. Again, this has to do with space. As much as I would have liked to have had an entire chapter devoted to just the gravestones, I felt it was not appropriate to this book. Again, this may be future project for another edition.
I wish you happy travels and should you find yourselves in Lucknow, standing by the Bailley Guard Gate, I hope my humble offering will enrich your visit to the Lucknow Residency.
