This extensive eight-volume work was first published between 1867 and 1877 by the linguist John Dowson (1820–81) from the manuscripts of the colonial administrator and scholar Sir Henry Miers Elliot (1808–53). Before his death, hoping to bolster British colonial ideology, Elliot had intended to evaluate scores of Arabic and Persian historians of India, believing that his translations would demonstrate the violence of the Muslim rulers and 'make our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantages accruing to them under the mildness and the equity of our rule'. Volume 8 addresses criticism of the previously published volumes, and includes additions and corrections to them. The volume also contains extracts of numerous additional histories covering the end of the Mughal Empire from Muhammad Shah (1702–1748) to the establishment of British political and military dominance in India in the mid-nineteenth century.