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The Far Pavilions
''The Far Pavilions'' is an epic novel of British-Indian history by M. M. Kaye, published in 1978, which tells the story of an English officer during the British Raj. There are many parallels between this novel and Rudyard Kipling's '' Kim'' that was published in 1900: the settings, the young English boy raised as a native by an Indian surrogate mother, " the Great Game" as it was played by the British Empire and Imperial Russia. The novel, rooted deeply in the romantic epics of the 19th century, has been hailed as a masterpiece of storytelling. It is based partly on biographical writings by the author's grandfather, as well as her knowledge of and childhood experiences in India. It has sold millions of copies, caused travel agents to create tours that visited the locations in the book, and inspired a television adaptation and a musical play. Plot summary Ashton Pelham-Martyn (Ash) is the son of a British botanist travelling through India; he is born on the road shortly before ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allen Lane
Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. In 1967 he started a hardback imprint under his own name, Allen Lane. Early life and family Allen Lane Williams was born in Bristol, to Camilla (née Lane) and Samuel Williams, and studied at Bristol Grammar School. In 1919 he joined the publishing company Bodley Head as an apprentice to his uncle and founder of the company John Lane. In the process, he and the rest of his family changed their surname to Lane to retain the childless John Lane's company as a family firm. Lane married Letitia Lucy Orr, daughter of Sir Charles Orr, on 28 June 1941 and had three daughters: Clare, Christine, and Anna. He was knighted in 1952. Career as a publisher He rose quickly at Bodley Head, becoming managing editor in 192 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mardan
Mardān (Pashto and ; Urdu ; Pashto: ) is a city in the Mardan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. Located in the Valley of Peshawar, Mardan is the second-largest city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (after Peshawar). It is a fast-growing city that experienced a population boom in the latter half of the twentieth century. Around 1800 BCE, the area around Mardan was part of the homeland of the Gandhara grave culture. Rock edicts of the ancient Indian King Ashoka in the nearby Shahbaz Garhi, written in the right-to-left Kharosthi script, date from the Mauryan period (mid-200s BCE) and represent the earliest irrefutable evidence of writing in South Asia. The nearby Takht-i-Bahi which has remains of an ancient Buddhist monastery was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. History Mardan is located in a region rich in archaeological sites. In 1962, the Sanghao Caves were discovered outside of Mardan, which yielded artefacts from the Middle Paleolithic period, ove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Duffell
Peter Duffell (10 July 1922 − 12 December 2017) was a British film and television director and screenwriter, born in Canterbury, England. The British actor Christopher Lee called Duffell Britain's "most under-rated director." Biography Duffell was born in Canterbury, Kent in 1922. He was the only son of a broken marriage, which resulted in his attending a variety of schools in Kent and London, as his mother moved away to work and he was raised by his grandmother. With a strong academic bent and great enthusiasm for the arts, he studied at London University and then at Keble College, Oxford, where he took an honours degree in English language and literature. Duffell began his career as a director with installments of the film series ''Scotland Yard'' and the ''Edgar Wallace Mysteries'' second features for Anglo-Amalgamated, both originally made for cinema release in the UK, as well as making documentaries and television commercials. Based on his television work, Milton Sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goldcrest Films
Goldcrest Films is an award-winning independent British distribution, production, post production, and finance company. Operating from London and New York, Goldcrest is a privately owned integrated filmed entertainment company. Goldcrest Films oversees the production, distribution and marketing of films produced by Goldcrest and third-party acquisition in addition to monetising Goldcrest's library of over 100 titles. Goldcrest Films recent slate includes ''Slumber'', '' Come and Find Me'', '' Stonewall'' (directed by Roland Emmerich), BBC's ''EARTH: One Amazing Day'' (directed by Peter Webber), and Joe Dante's ''Labirintus.'' Nick Quested is the current executive director and owner. History Goldcrest was founded as Goldcrest Films International by Jake Eberts in January 1977 as a feature film enterprise. As of 1981, the UK National Coal Board Pension Fund was a major stakeholder in this company. It enjoyed success in the 1980s and the 1990s with films such as ''Chariots of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari
Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari (4 July 1841 – 3 September 1879) was an Italian-British military administrator. Cavagnari was the son of Count Louis Adolphus Cavagnari, of an old family from Parma in the service of the Bonaparte family, by his marriage in 1837 with an Anglo-Irish woman, Caroline Lyons-Montgomery. Cavagnari was born at Stenay, in the Meuse département, France, on 4 July 1841. He was killed on 3 September 1879 during the siege of the British Residency (then at Bala Hissar) in Kabul in Afghanistan. He was educated at Christ's Hospital school, starting at the age of 10 years. He had obtained naturalization as a British subject, and entered the military service of the East India Company. After passing through college at the Addiscombe Military Seminary, he served through the Oudh campaign against the mutineers in 1858 and 1859. In 1861 he was appointed an assistant commissioner in the Punjab region of British India, and in 1877 became deputy commission ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Richard Pollock Hamilton
Walter Richard Pollock Hamilton VC (18 August 1856 – 3 September 1879) was born in Inistioge, County Kilkenny and was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He is featured in M. M. Kaye's epic novel ''The Far Pavilions''. Details Hamilton was a great nephew of General Sir George Pollock who led the Army of Retribution in the First Afghan War. He was educated at Felsted. Hamilton was 22 years old, and a lieutenant in the Staff Corps and Corps of Guides, Indian Army during the Second Afghan War when the following deed took place on 2 April 1879 at Futtehabad, Afghanistan, for which he was awarded the VC: The scene of Hamilton's death was the Bala Hissar, an enclosure within the city of Kabul. He commanded a small force of 20 Cavalry and 50 Infantry, all from the Corps of Guides, which formed an escort for Sir Louis Cavagnari the E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC List Of 100 'most Inspiring' Novels
On 5 November 2019, the BBC published a list of novels selected by a panel of six writers and critics, who had been asked to choose 100 English language novels "that have had an impact on their lives". The resulting list of "100 novels that shaped our world", called the "100 'most inspiring' novels" by BBC News, was published by the BBC to kick off a year of celebrating literature. The list triggered comments from critics and other news agencies. News agencies from outside the United Kingdom, like Canadian broadcaster CBC News and Nigerian news website Legit.ng, profiled authors with works included in the list who were nationals of their countries. ''The Guardian'' noted surprising titles missing from the list, like ''Moby-Dick'', and writing in ''The Daily Telegraph'', Jake Kerridge called it "a short-sighted list that will please nobody." The BBC relied on six experts: Stig Abell, Mariella Frostrup, Juno Dawson, Kit de Waal, Alexander McCall Smith and Syima Aslam. The CBC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 50 foreign news bureaus with more than 250 correspondents around the world. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England and national news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. According to late 2022 estimates, the population of Kabul was 13.5 million people. In contemporary times, the city has served as Afghanistan's political, cultural, and economical centre, and rapid urbanisation has made Kabul the 75th-largest city in the world and the country's primate city. The modern-day city of Kabul is located high up in a narrow valley between the Hindu Kush, and is bounded by the Kabul River. At an elevation of , it is one of the highest capital cities in the world. Kabul is said to be over 3,500 years old, mentioned since at least the time of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Located at a crossroads in Asia—roughly halfway between Istanbul, Turkey, in the west and Hanoi, Vietnam, in the east—it is situated in a stra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Afghan War
The Second Anglo-Afghan War (Dari: جنگ دوم افغان و انگلیس, ps, د افغان-انګرېز دويمه جګړه) was a military conflict fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the latter was ruled by Sher Ali Khan of the Barakzai dynasty, the son of former Emir Dost Mohammad Khan. The war was part of the Great Game between the British and Russian empires. The war was split into two campaigns – the first began in November 1878 with the British invasion of Afghanistan from India. The British were quickly victorious and forced the Amir – Sher Ali Khan to flee. Ali's successor Mohammad Yaqub Khan immediately sued for peace and the Treaty of Gandamak was then signed on 26 May 1879. The British sent an envoy and mission led by Sir Louis Cavagnari to Kabul, but on 3 September this mission was massacred and the conflict was reignited by Ayub Khan which led to the abdication of his brother Yaqub. The second camp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sati (practice)
Sati or suttee is a Hindu practice, now largely historical, in which a widow sacrifices herself by sitting atop her deceased husband's funeral pyre. Quote: Between 1943 and 1987, some thirty women in Rajasthan (twenty-eight, according to official statistics) immolated themselves on their husband's funeral pyre. This figure probably falls short of the actual number. (p. 182) Although it is debated whether it received scriptural mention in early Hinduism, it has been linked to related Hindu practices in the Indo-Aryan speaking regions of India which diminished the rights of women, especially those to the inheritance of property. A cold form of sati, or the neglect and casting out of Hindu widows has been prevalent in India from ancient times. Quote: Sati is a particularly relevant social practice because it is often used as a means to prevent inheritance of property by widows. In parallel, widows are also sometimes branded as witches – and subjected to violent expulsion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rana (title)
Rana (IAST: ''Rāṇā'', Sanskrit: ) is a historical title denoting an absolute Hindu monarch in the Indian subcontinent. Today, it is used as a hereditary name in the Indian and Pakistani subcontinent. "Rana" was formerly used as a title of martial sovereignty by Jat and Rajput kings in India. Rani is the title for the wife of a rana or a female monarch. It also applies to the wife of a raja. Compound titles include ''rana sahib'', ''ranaji'', ''rana bahadur'', and '' maharana''. Usage in the Indian subcontinent "Rana" was formerly used as a title of martial sovereignty by Rajput kings in India. Sisodia rulers of Mewar used the title of Mahārāṇā (महाराणा) extensively in their royal charters. Today, members of some Rajput clans in Indian subcontinent use it as a hereditary title. In Pakistan, mostly Muslims—but also some Hindus in Sindh (present-day Pakistan)—use it as a hereditary title. Umerkot, a state in Sindh, has a Hindu Thakur Sodha Rajput ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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