A Prince of Dreamers
by Flora Annie Steel 1847–1929
The book, and the century it came out of.
Akbar at the height of his power, seen from inside the harem and the council chamber alike: the emperor who could not read building a capital, a religion and an empire, and the women whose lives are decided by his moods. Steel spent twenty-two years in India as an official’s wife, learned Punjabi, inspected girls’ schools and collected the folk tales; she wrote the Mughal court from the sources and from a knowledge of the country that almost no English novelist had. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Vanmour, de Troy and Roos among them.
“The fiction which resembles truth is better than the truth which is dissevered from the imagination,” said the Persian poet Nizami, in the year 1250.
A Prince of Dreamers, by Flora Annie Steel, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Adventure & the Sea
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 296 pages
- Reading time
- about 6 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501006041
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
A Prince of Dreamers, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Adventure & the Sea shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501006041, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of A Prince of Dreamers?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Flora Annie Steel's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 296 pages, which is roughly about 6 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
