Alexander Dow (1735/6, Perthshire, Scotland – 31 July 1779, Bhagalpur) was an Orientalist, writer, playwright and army officer in the East India Company.
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He was a native of Crieff, Perthshire, was educated for a mercantile career. He is said to have left Scotland after a fatal duel, and to have worked his way as a common sailor to Bencoolen. There he became secretary to the governor, and was commended to the patronage of the officials of the East India Company at Calcutta. He joined the army there as an ensign in the Bengal infantry on 14 September 1760, and was rapidly promoted lieutenant on 23 August 1763, and captain on 16 April 1764.
He returned to England on leave in 1768, and published in that year two translations, Tales translated from the Persian of Inatulla of Delhi and the History of Hindostan, translated from the Persian of Ferishta, from Firishta. Both works had a great success, and in the following year Dow had a five-act tragedy Zingis which was acted with some success at Drury Lane.
He then returned to India, and was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 25 February 1769, and in 1772 published the continuation of his history of Hindostan to the death of Aurungzeb, with two dissertations, ‘On the Origin and Nature of Despotism in Hindostan,’ and ‘An Enquiry into the State of Bengal.’ In 1774 he again returned to England, and David Garrick produced his second tragedy in verse at Drury Lane, entitled ‘Sethona.’ It was acted only for nine nights, and was said by David Erskine Baker in his Biographia Dramatica to be not really by Dow at all.
Dow returned once more to India, and died at Bhágalpur on 31 July 1779.