Mirza Asadu'llah Khan Ghalib was the brightest luminary of his time in the South Asian, Muslim literary community. A poet in Urdu and Persian, he was endowed with exquisite imagination, sparkling wit, and a charming presence. Ghalib was a brilliant conversationalist, skilled in the art of human relations. In the last twenty years of his life, the political conditions of northern India caused the death or dispersion of many of his best friends. He...