- Raj Quartet
"The Raj Quartet" is a four-volume
novel sequence, written byPaul Scott , about the concluding years of theBritish Raj inIndia . The series was written during the period1965 –75The story of Raj Quartet begins in
1942 .World War II is at its zenith, and inSouth East Asia , the allied forces have suffered great losses.Burma (now known asMyanmar ) has fallen, and the Japanese invasion of theIndian subcontinent from the east appears imminent. The year 1942 is also marked by Indian nationalist leaderMahatma Gandhi ’s call for the quit India movement to the British rulers of India. "The Raj Quartet" is set in this tumultuous background for the British soldiers and civilians stationed inIndia who have a duty to manage this part of theBritish Empire , known euphemistically as the jewel in the crown of theBritish Monarch .The lead characters in the first novel, which sets the stage for the subsequent ones, are Daphne Manners, a young English woman who has recently arrived in India from
England , and her British educatedIndia n lover, Hari Kumar. Ronald Merrick, a British police officer belonging to theIndian Police Service , is another main character.The Novels
The four volumes are:
*"The Jewel in the Crown" – (1966 )
*"The Day of the Scorpion " – (1968 )
*"The Towers of Silence " – (1971 )
*"A Division of the Spoils " – (1975 )Some of the characters are carried through to a further novel called
*"Staying On " – (1977)Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
*1984:"The Jewel in the Crown" is a television mini-series based upon all four books. It was created by
Granada Television forITV and starredArt Malik ,Om Puri ,Geraldine James ,Saeed Jaffrey ,Karan Kapoor ,Peggy Ashcroft ,Tim Pigott-Smith andCharles Dance .*2005: A 9-part
BBC Radio 4 adaptation under the original title, using the book titles as subtitles.
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