Nawal Kishore was an Indian publisher who established the eponymous Nawal Kishore Press in Lucknow in 1858. The firm grew to become the largest indigenous publishing house in South Asia in the 19th century and played a leading role in the promotion and preservation of Urdu, Hindi and Persian literature, as well as texts from the Islamic and Hindu religious traditions.
Born in 1836 in Agra, Nawal Kishore began his career as an Urdu-language journalist and learnt presswork at the Kohinoor Press, Lahore. Printing in northern India was severely disrupted first by a ban imposed by Wajid Ali Shah, Nawab of Oudh in 1849, and then the sepoy uprising of 1857. In a field largely devoid of competition, Nawal Kishore began by publishing in Urdu, but quickly expanded his operations to include works in Hindi, and soon became the favoured recipient of British government contracts.
