Anthony Sattin's study itself has a dreamlike quality . . . he movingly reminds us of how, in the midst of life, those destined for greatness have no more idea where they are going than the rest of us.

It is a tribute to Sattin's knowledge of Egypt and his skill as a writer that he makes this counterpoint narrative seem so effortless. His protagonists circle without ever touching in a dance through the desert.

Running beneath this cavalcade of visionary incidents and skilfully realised tableaux is a subtext about travel as a mystical dislocation.

In this entertaining book Sattin makes some important points on the intellectual, emotional and spiritual development of his immortal subjects.

Sattin has written a brilliantly assured experiment in biography, a triumph of the historical imagination. Convincingly researched, informed by an unobtrusive first-hand knowledge of Egyptian places, compellingly skilful in the writing, the whole story is illuminated by Anthony Sattin's delicately perceptive sense of character in action.

Remarkable

Sattin's account is authoritative, thoroughly researched and pacy . . . this book is a treat.

Elegant and absorbing, A Winter On The Nile sheds fresh light upon two titans of the age

Beguiling and impressively researched ... A compelling snapshot of two of the most celebrated figures of the age, before their fame, and of a time when travel was leisurely and scholarly. And it sings with the romance of Egypt

If this doesn't win a major book prize, I will eat my sola topi ... Beautifully counterpoints the spiritual travel experiences of the soon-to-be-famous nurse fleeing an arranged marriage, with the much more lubricious ones of the then-unpublished novelist.

In 1849, Florence Nightingale and author Gustave Flaubert visited Egypt. Anthony Sattin's book recreates the transformative steps towards fame these two took as they simultaneously travelled around Egypt

Highly readable and illuminating ... Mishra's analysis of Muslim reactions is particularly topical

Enormously ambitious but thoroughly readable, this book is essential reading for everyone who is interested in the processes of change that have led to the emergence of today's Asia

Sophisticated ... not so much polemic as cri de coeur, motivated by Mishra's keen sense of the world, East and West, hurtling towards its own destruction

Outstanding ... Mishra wears his scholarship lightly and weaves together the many strands of history into a gripping narrative ... The insights afforded by this book are too many to be enumerated ... Mishra performs a signal service to the future - by making us read the past in a fresh light

[Full of] complexity and nuance

Subtle, erudite and entertaining

Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia

A vital, nuanced argument ... prodigious