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Ismail Merchant

Indian film producer (1936–2005)

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Ismail Merchant was an Indian film producer. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included film director James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Together they made film adaptations from the novels of E.M. Forster and Henry James. Merchant received the BAFTA Award for Best Film for A Room with a View (1985), and Howards End (1992). He received Academy Award nominations for Best Live Action Short Film for The Creation of a Woman (1959) and for Best Picture for A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).

Editorial summary

“Ismail Merchant” enters the record as indian film producer (1936–2005). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ismail, Merchant and Indian can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1985, 1992, 1959, 1993—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Ismail, Merchant and Indian.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Ismail Merchant” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ismail, Merchant and Indian provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1985, 1992, 1959 and 1993.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ismail Merchant”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ismail Merchant primary sources, Ismail Merchant archive and Ismail research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ismail Merchant”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ismail Merchant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.