He wrote an autobiography titled The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin the Armenian Written in English by Himself, which was first published in London in 1792.

Born in Hamadan and raised in Calcutta, he traveled to London as a young man, received a military education there, and fought in the Seven Years' War.

However, in 1764 the Georgian king exiled Emin, who then unsuccessfully attempted to gather support for his plans among the Armenian meliks (princes) of Karabakh.

[1] Emin was born at a time when Iran was in turmoil as a result of the Afghan occupation of Isfahan and the fall of the Safavid dynasty.

In the early 1730s, Emin's family moved to Baghdad, where his mother and younger brother died during the siege of the city in 1733 by Tahmasp Qoli Khan, the future Nader Shah.

When he came into contact with the British military in Calcutta, he realized that the Armenians needed both education and skill in the contemporary Western art of warfare if they hoped to regain independence.

He received sponsorship from Hugh Percy the Duke of Northumberland and was admitted to the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, where he remained for thirteenth months after which he enlisted as a volunteer in the British and Prussian armies during their war against France in order to gain practical experience.

In Saint Petersburg he met with the Russian imperial chancellor Count Vorontsov, to whom he presented his plans to go to Georgia, enter the service of King Heraclius II, and help liberate Armenia.

In Tiflis, Emin stressed to the king the historical links between the Armenian and Georgian peoples and the monarch's legitimate rights to extend his rule over his ancestral lands (see Origin of the Bagratid dynasties), assuring him that a small but disciplined army could easily cross over into Armenia, where a general revolt against Persian and Ottoman rule would take place.

Emin remained in India for the rest of his life, and devoted his time and energy to keeping the idea of the liberation of Armenia alive.