'Riveting. This highly readable and entertaining book ... finally sets the record straight on the history of the Koh-i-Noor ' Tarquin Hall, Sunday Times 'Dynamic, original and supremely readable ' Maya Jasanoff, Guardian The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i- Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world. On 29 March 1849, the ten-year-old maharaja of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over great swathes of the richest country in India in a formal Act of Submission to a private corporation, the East India Company. He was also compelled to hand over to the British monarch, Queen Victoria, perhaps the single most