The story of the Black Hole of Calcutta was once drilled into every British schoolchild: how in 1756 the Nawab of Bengal attacked Fort William and locked the survivors in a tiny cell, where over a hundred souls died in insufferable heat. British retribution was swift and merciless, and led to much of India falling completely under colonial dominion. "The Black Hole" is the story of the propagation of a myth that arose as the British Empire came into being: a myth about the barbarism of a people the colonials sought to rule, and how that myth - based on improbable exaggeration and half-truth - helped justify the march of empire for two hundred years.

'Dalley has unearthed company records, letters and historians' speculations to produce a vivid and damning account of the city's fall' The Times'Combining compelling narrative with impressive insight, [this] is an immensely enjoyable read' The Spectator'Dalley has written a quite brilliant book: fascinating, gripping, insightful and, above all, even-handed' The Telegraph'Imperial history at its best' Sunday Times'An imaginative and forensically relentless examination' Independent on Sunday

Jan Dalley is the arts editor of the Financial Times; for several years before that she was the paper's literary editor, and she is the author of numerous features and reviews on the arts and books, as well as a fortnightly column in the FT Weekend section. In 1999 she published a biography of Diana Mosley; she has also published translations from French and Russian. She has three children and lives in London.