''Letters of an Indian Judge to an English Gentlewoman'' is a book of correspondence, in the form of letters, from Arvind Nehra, an Indian judge in

colonial India Colonial India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was occupied by European colonial powers during the Age of Discovery. European power was exerted both by conquest and trade, especially in spices. The search for the wealth and prosper ...

. First published in 1934, this compilation of letters that were "unhindered by thoughts of public utterance". Nehra met the English woman, the wife of an English Colonel, at a party at Government House in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, after having recently returned from university in Cambridge. The author is then sent to

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and he documents his time there, suffering all the racism that was ever present in colonial India towards the first half of the twentieth century. In Burma, he befriended his superior, and when with him, is treated to a life that he had known not since he had left

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He is able to attend the clubs whilst in this man's company, and is sometimes invited to make up a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

four. Although, it eventually becomes apparent that he is only being treated kindly by the white ruling class when in this man's company, and when his superior leaves town for several days, he is again treated horribly.

Authorship

This book was originally published by

Lovat Dickson Lovat Dickson, born Horatio Henry Lovat Dickson (June 30, 1902 – January 2, 1987), was a notable publisher and writer, the first Canadian to have a major publishing role in Britain. He is best known today for his biographies of Grey Owl, Ric ...

in 1934 who sold his publishing list in 1938 to Peter Davies Limited which was founded by

Peter Llewelyn Davies Peter Llewelyn Davies MC (25 February 1897 – 5 April 1960) was the middle of five sons of Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, one of the Llewelyn Davies boys befriended and later informally adopted by J. M. Barrie. Barrie publicly identifi ...

, a cousin of Daphne du Maurier and a family friend of J. M. Barrie (Peter and his brothers were the 'originals' for Peter Pan and the Lost Boys). A Publishers' Note printed at the beginning of the book in the first edition and reprints by Lovat Dickson and Peter Davies states, referring to the letters, "The Publishers have satisfied themselves that they are genuine". The British Library's on-line catalogue cites a Publisher's Note in later reprints by Futura 1978(1979) and Mandarin 1992 which mentions claims that the entire work is fiction without, however, endorsing the claims or naming the claimants. The aforementioned Publisher's Note identifies the author of the letters in this anonymous and frequently reprinted work are addressed as Dorothy Black (niece of Frederick Delius), a prolific novelist from 1916 to 1974, who had also written about life in Burma. She became much later a vice-president of the Romantic Novelists' Association.

References

1934 British novels English novels Epistolary novels Novels set in India Novels set in Myanmar {{1930s-epistolary-novel-stub