Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859) was appointed through family influence to the East India Company, and arrived in India in 1796. He learnt Persian, and developed an interest in Indian literature and politics. After postings in Afghanistan and Poona he became Governor in 1819 of the recently acquired territory that became known as the Bombay Presidency. His biographer also had connections to India. Thomas Edward Colebrooke (1813–1890) was the son of British administrator and Sanskrit scholar Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837), and although he lived in England and served as an M. P., Colebrooke remained interested in colonial affairs. He had written about Elphinstone's life in 1861 for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and subsequently expanded his work into these two volumes, published in 1884. Volume 1 examines Elphinstone's childhood, education and early career, covering the period up to 1817.
