East of Suez [annotated]

Originally published in 1901, East of Suez was Alice Perrin’s first collection of short stories. Her fascinating and thought-provoking tales of Anglo-Indian life rival the best work of Kipling, and were hugely successful in their day. Perrin tells stories of illicit love and betrayal set against a beautifully-drawn backdrop of the mystical east, interweaving the supernatural with exquisite details of her characters’ lives. As the Times wrote in her obituary: “She wrote a simple, unforced style, and the reader feels keenly the heat, the dust, the moonrise, the night calls, and all the sights and sounds and smells of the unchanging East.”The stories are:* Beynon, of the Irrigation Department* The Tiger-Charm* A Perverted Punishment* An Eastern Echo* A Man’s Theory* The Summoning of Arnold* In the Next Room* The White Tiger* Caulfield’s Crime* The Fakir’s Island* The Belief of Bhagwan, Bearer* ‘In the Court of Conscience’* Chunia, Ayah* The BiscobraThis new edition, edited by Melissa Edmunson Makala, includes:* Critical introduction* Author biography* Suggestions for further reading* Explanatory notes* Contextual material on representations of the British Raj* Illustrations from The Illustrated London News and The Windsor Magazine

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