Raj Quartet, Volume 1: The Jewel in the Crown (Univ of Chicago PR)

The first volume of Paul Scott's classic account of the last days of British rule in India

No set of novels so richly recreates the last days of India under British rule-"two nations locked in an imperial embrace"-as Paul Scott's historical tour de force, The Raj Quartet. The Jewel in the Crown opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for independence. On the night after the Indian Congress Party votes to support Ghandi, riots break out and an ambitious police sergeant arrests a young Indian for the alleged rape of the woman they both love.