author

Mary Holdsworth

Remembered through a concise but valuable study of Central Asia, this writer explored the nineteenth-century khanates of Bukhara, Kokand, and Khiva for readers interested in the region’s history. Very little biographical information is readily available, which gives the work an added air of mystery.

1 Audiobook

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Sing a Song of Sixpence

by Mary Holdsworth

About the author

Mary Holdsworth is known from surviving library and archival records as the author of Turkestan in the Nineteenth Century: A Brief History of the Khanates of Bukhara, Kokand and Khiva. The book was issued in 1959 by the Central Asian Research Centre in association with St. Antony's College, Oxford, and it was noted in scholarly circles at the time.

Reliable public information about Holdsworth’s life appears to be scarce. Based on the sources available here, it is safest to describe her as a historical writer whose recorded legacy rests mainly on this study of Central Asia rather than on a well-documented public biography.

That makes her work especially interesting for modern listeners and readers: even with only a small documentary trail, her book still points to a serious engagement with the politics and history of nineteenth-century Turkestan.