The Great Mutiny: India 1857 was published by Allen Lane in 1978. The Indian Mutiny (or the First War of Indian Independence, as Indian historians prefer) began on May 10, 1857, when sepoys at Meerut refused to use rifle cartridges rumored to be greased with cow and pig fat, killed their British officers, and marched on Delhi. The rebellion spread across northern India, producing some of the most dramatic sieges in military history — Delhi, Lucknow, Cawnpore — and some of the worst atrocities committed by both sides.
Hibbert’s achievement is to tell this complex story with clarity and balance. He describes the British perspective — the shock of the uprising, the terror of the sieges, the relief columns fighting their way through hostile territory — but he also gives substantial space to the Indian perspective: the genuine grievances that fueled the rebellion (religious insensitivity, annexation of Indian states, economic exploitation), the diversity of Indian responses (many Indians fought alongside the British; the rebellion was far from unanimous), and the devastating British reprisals that followed the reconquest.
The narrative set pieces are among Hibbert’s finest: the fall of Delhi, described street by street; the siege of Lucknow, told from inside the Residency as the garrison slowly starved; the massacre at Cawnpore, presented without the vengeful rhetoric that marred earlier British accounts. Hibbert does not minimize the horror — children were murdered, prisoners were butchered, captives were tortured — but he distributes the horror equitably between the two sides.
Collecting The Great Mutiny
First edition (Allen Lane, London, 1978): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $30–$80
- Very good/very good: $10–$30