John Masters

THE VENUS OF KONPARA The Venus of Konpara is a moving and exciting tale of six people in search of an ancient Indian statue and the tumultuous effect the search has on their lives. Set in an Indian jungle in 1890, it probes into their private thoughts, feelings, and dark intimacies while the statue...

CHAPTER ONE The girl leaned out of the casement, the leaded panes and all her face dark in the shadow of the overhanging thatch. The clock in the church-tower struck twelve. The cracked notes dropped slowly, one by one, into the moon-lit well of the green, and ran about the lanes of the village...

FOREWORDIn the foreword to the first volume of my autobiography. Bugles and a Tiger, I wrote'The purpose of this book . . . is to tell the story of how a schoolboy became a professional soldier of the old Indian Army. In the course of the story I hope to have given an idea of what India was like in...

Chapter One IH A D a fine Norton that year, in Bhowani. It's got smashed up since, but it was looking good the day I went down to see Victoria after she came back from the Army. I got to the house, cut off the engine, and sat there in the saddle while it coughed, hiccupped once or twice, and...

FOREWORD In this book the reader will encounter a great many Indian names. It will help to remember, first, that Hindus do not use surnames, and second, that many of them share the same final honorific. In a name such as Himat Singh, for example, Himat is the man's real name; Singh means...