Mary Margaret Kaye
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Mary Margaret ('Mollie') Kaye (21 August 1908 – 29 January 2004) was a British writer. Her most famous book is ''
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'' th ...
'' (1978).


Life

M. M. Kaye was born in
Simla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared as the summer capital of British India. After independence, th ...
,
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
, and lived in an Oakland, Shimla, a heritage property from 1915 to 1918. She was the elder daughter and one of three children born to Sir Cecil Kaye and his wife, Margaret Sarah Bryson. Cecil Kaye was an intelligence officer in the Indian Army. M. M. Kaye's grandfather, brother and husband all served the
British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...
. Her grandfather's cousin, Sir John William Kaye, wrote the standard accounts of the
Indian Mutiny of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the for ...
and the
First Afghan War The First Anglo-Afghan War ( fa, جنگ اول افغان و انگلیس) was fought between the British Empire and the Emirate of Afghanistan, Emirate of Kabul from 1838 to 1842. The British initially successfully invaded the country taking si ...
. At 10, Mollie Kaye, as she was then known, was sent to England to attend boarding school. She subsequently studied children's book illustration and earned money by designing Christmas cards. In 1926, she briefly returned to live with her family in India, but after her father's death, she was displeased by her mother's pressure to find a junior officer to marry and so returned to England living in London on a small pension based on her late father's army career, augmented first by earnings from illustrating children's books and from 1937 from the publication of children's books written by Kaye. Her first adult novel, ''Six Bars at Seven'', published in 1940, was a thriller that Kaye had been moved to write by regularly reading that type of books from the Fourpenny Library: "Most of the stuff I was reading was total rubbish, and I used to think I couldn't write worse. So I sat down and wrote one."Obituary: MM Kaye , World news , The Guardian
/ref>
/ref> The £64 that she received for ''Six Bars at Seven'' enabled Kaye to return to Simla, where she lived with her married sister, Dorothy Elizabeth Pardey. In June 1941, Kaye met her future husband. The British Indian Army officer, Godfrey John Hamilton was four years her junior and reportedly proposed to Kaye on five days' acquaintance.M. M. Kaye Draws on 70 Lively Years to Create An Epic Book on Her Beloved India: People.com
/ref> Kaye was pregnant with the couple's second child when she and Hamilton were able to marry on
Armistice Day Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, Fran ...
1945, Hamilton's first marriage having been dissolved. After her second child's 1946 birth Kaye returned to writing. (Hamilton's first wife, Mary Penelope Colthurst, lived in Ireland with the couple's daughter. Kaye would later state of her affair with Hamilton, "We just couldn't wait. Had it been peacetime, I wouldn't have done it because of the way I had been brought up. But these were the pressures of war".) After the 1947 dissolution of the British Indian Army because India's achieved independence, Hamilton had transferred to the British Army, where his career necessitated him and his family to relocate 27 times over the next 29 years, with Kaye using several of those locales in a series of crime novels. That inaugurated the rise of the pen name M. M. Kaye, the writer's previous published works having been credited to Mollie Kaye. Kaye's literary agent was Paul Scott, who had been an army officer in India and would find fame as author of The Raj Quartet. It was with Scott's encouragement that Kaye wrote her first historical epic of India ''Shadow of the Moon'' published in 1957. The focal background of ''Shadow of the Moon'' is the
Sepoy Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the for ...
with which Kaye had been familiarised but stories heard as a child from her family's native servants. That early interest being reinforced in the mid-1950s, when Kaye, on a visit to friends, in India chanced on some transcripts of trials attendant on the Sepoy Mutiny in a shed on her friends' property. Kaye would later state her displeasure over the original published version of ''Shadow of the Moon'' being edited without her knowledge, with sections focused on action, rather than romance, being largely deleted. Kaye's second historical novel, ''Trade Wind'', was published in 1963. Kaye, inspired by a visit to India, then planned to commence work on an epic novel with the
Second Anglo-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 l ...
as its background, but she was diagnosed with
lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...
. The prognosis waa later changed to lymphosarcoma; enervated by
chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...
, she was unable to write until she was back in good health, with a resultant delay in the start of her writing the masterpiece ''The Far Pavilions'', until 1967, when Kaye and the newly-retired Hamilton became longtime residents of the Sussex hamlet of Boreham Street. Published in 1978, ''The Far Pavilions'' became a worldwide bestseller on publication and caused the successful republishing of ''Shadow of the Moon'', with the previously-deleted sections restored, ''Trade Wind'' and Kaye's crime novels. Kaye also wrote and illustrated '' The Ordinary Princess'', a children's book that was called "refreshingly unsentimental" by an article in ''
Horn Book Magazine ''The Horn Book Magazine'', founded in Boston in 1924, is the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children's literature. It began as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony Miller and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietres ...
''. She originally it wrote as a short story, and wrote a half-a-dozen detective novels, including ''Death in Kashmir'' and ''Death in Zanzibar''. Her autobiography has been published in three volumes and was collectively entitled ''Share of Summer: The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon,'' and ''Enchanted Evening''. In March 2003, Kaye was awarded the Colonel
James Tod Lieutenant-Colonel James Tod (20 March 1782 – 18 November 1835) was an officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar. He combined his official role and his amateur interests to create a series of works about the hist ...
International Award by the Maharana Mewar Foundation of Udaipur, Rajasthan, for her "contribution of permanent value reflecting the spirit and values of Mewar." Widowed in 1985, Kaye lived with her sister in a wing of Kaye's older daughter's house in
Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...
from 1987. Kaye relocated to Suffolk in 2001 and was residing in
Lavenham Lavenham is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is noted for its Guildhall, Little Hall, 15th-century church, half-timbered medieval cottages and circular walks. In the mediev ...
when she died on 29 January 2004, at age 95. At sunset on 4 March 2006, Kaye's ashes were scattered over the waters from a boat in the middle of
Lake Pichola Lake Pichola, situated in Udaipur city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, is an artificial fresh water lake, created in the year 1362, named after the nearby Picholi village. It is one of the several contiguous lakes, and developed over the last ...
. The duty was performed by Michael Ward, the producer of the West End musical version of ''The Far Pavilions'', and his wife, Elaine. A grandson is the comedian James Bachman.Burke's Irish Family Records, 1976, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, p. 553


Work


Children's stories

* ''Potter Pinner Meadow'' 1937 - writing as Mollie Kaye, illustrated by Margaret Tempest * ''Black Bramble Wood'' 1938 - writing as Mollie Kaye, illustrated by Margaret Tempest * ''Willow Witches Brook'' 1944 - writing as Mollie Kaye, illustrated by Margaret Tempest * ''Gold Gorse Common'' 1945 - writing as Mollie Kaye, illustrated by Margaret Tempest * '' The Ordinary Princess'' 1980 - written and illustrated by M M Kaye * ''Thistledown'' 1981 - written and illustrated by M M Kaye


Historical novels

* '' Shadow of the Moon'' 1957, (revised edition) 1979 * ''Trade Wind'' 1963, 1981 * ''
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'' th ...
'' 1978


Autobiography: Share of Summer

* Part 1: ''The Sun In The Morning'' 1990 * Part 2: ''Golden Afternoon'' 1997 * Part 3: ''Enchanted Evening'' 1999


Children's stories illustrated (but not written) by M M Kaye

* Adventures in a Caravan by Mrs A C Osborn
950 Year 950 ( CML) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: A Hamdanid army (30,000 men) led by Sayf al-Dawla raids int ...
- illustrated by Mollie Kaye * Children of Galilee by Lydia S Eliott
950 Year 950 ( CML) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: A Hamdanid army (30,000 men) led by Sayf al-Dawla raids int ...
- illustrated by Mollie Kaye * The Cranstons at Sandly Bay by Phyllis I Norris 949- illustrated by Mollie Kaye * The Story of Saint Francis of Assisi by E W Grierson
950 Year 950 ( CML) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: A Hamdanid army (30,000 men) led by Sayf al-Dawla raids int ...
- illustrated by Mollie Kaye * The Two Pins by C B Poultney 949- illustrations by Mollie Kaye


Radio plays

* ''England Awakes'' - a one-act play, broadcast on
All India Radio All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All ...
c. 1940 * A series of playlets based on the war news - broadcast on All India Radio c. 1940


Television series

* ''The Far Pavilions'' 1984 (also released in cinemas as ''Blade of Steel'') :*Transmitted in the UK by
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
and in US on HBO on 3 January 1984, 8 October 1985 and 7 February 1988. * ''The Ordinary Princess'' 1984 :*Transmitted in the UK by the BBC as part of its weekly Jackanory series for children


Suspense novels: The Death in... Series

* ''Death in Kashmir'' (originally published as ''Death Walked in Kashmir'' - 1953) 1984 * '' Death in Berlin'' (originally published as ''Death Walked in Berlin'' - 1955) 1985 * ''
Death in Cyprus ''Death in Cyprus'' (published in 1956) is an M. M. Kaye mystery novel. The story, set on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country ...
'' (originally published as ''Death Walked in Cyprus'' - 1956) 1984 * ''Death in Kenya'' (originally published as ''Later Than You Think'' - 1958, and ''It's Later Than You Think'' - 1960) 1983 * ''Death in Zanzibar'' (originally published as ''The House of Shade'' - 1959) 1983 * ''Death in the Andamans'' (originally published as ''Night on the Island'' - 1960) 1985 * ''House of Shade'' (omnibus edition of ''Death in Zanzibar'', ''Death in the Andamans'', and ''Death in Kashmir'') 1993


Other novels

* ''Six Bars at Seven'' 1940 - writing as Mollie Kaye **M M Kaye's first novel** * ''Strange Island'' 1944 - writing as Mollie Kaye (original version of ''Night on the Island'') * ''Wound of Spring'' 1961, unpublished * ''Far Pavilions Picture Book'' 1979


Books edited or introduced by M M Kaye

* ''Golden Calm'' by Emily, Lady Clive Bayley and Sir Thomas Metcalfe 1980 * ''Costumes and Characters of the British Raj'' 1982 by Evelyn Battye * ''Making of The Jewel in the Crown'' 1983 Various contributors including M M Kaye * ''Original Letters from India: 1779-1815'' by Eliza Fay 1986 * ''Moon of Other Days - Selected Verses'' by Rudyard Kipling 1988 Paintings by George Sharp (sketches and watercolors by M M Kaye) * ''Picking Up Gold & Silver - Selected Short Stories'' by Rudyard Kipling 1989 * ''Complete Verse'' by
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...
1990 * ''Simla - The Summer Capital of British India'' by Raja Bhasin 1992


Musicals

* The Far Pavilions (opened at the
Shaftesbury Theatre The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. Opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, it was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue. History The theatre was ...
,
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, on 24 Mar 2005) :Cast: :
Kabir Bedi Kabir Bedi ( pa, ਕਬੀਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਬੇਦੀ; born 16 January 1946) is an Indian actor. His career has spanned three continents covering India, the United States and especially Italy among other European countries in three media: f ...
- Koda Dad Khan Sahib : David Burt -
Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
Harkness :
Hadley Fraser Robert Hugh "Hadley" Fraser (born 21 April 1980) is an English actor and singer. He made his West End debut as Marius in ''Les Misérables''. He also originated the role of Tiernan in the Broadway show '' The Pirate Queen''. Life and career ...
- Ashton Pelham-Martyn :
Kulvinder Ghir Kulvinder Ghir (born 10 August 1965) is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is best known as one of the cast members in the BBC sketch show '' Goodness Gracious Me''. He is also known for playing Aslam in the 1987 Yorkshire-based film '' Ri ...
-
Maharana Maharana is a variation on the Indian royal title Rana (title), Rana. Maharana denotes 'king of kings', similar to the word "Maharaja". Ruler title in British India Salute states (all in present India) The gun salutes enjoyed by the states that ...
of Bhithor :
Simon Gleeson Simon Gleeson (born 13 January 1977) is an Australian actor and singer who is best known for playing Jean Valjean in the 2014 Australian revival and in the 2016/17 cast of the West End production of ''Les Misérables''. He performed in Noël Co ...
- Lt. Walter Hamilton :
Sophiya Haque Sophiya Haque (14 June 1971 – 17 January 2013) was an English actress, singer, video jockey and dancer. She is best known for playing the role of Poppy Morales in '' Coronation Street'' between 2008 and 2009. Early life Haque was born Syeda ...
- Janoo Rani :
Gayatri Iyer Gayatri Ganjawala () is an Indian playback singer, primarily in Bollywood. She landed up with the part of Princess Anjuli in the West End of London musical production of M. M. Kaye's ''The Far Pavilions'', which opened in the summer of 2007 ...
- Princess Anjuli : Fiona Wade - Princess Anjuli :
Dianne Pilkington Dianne Lesley Pilkington (born 7 June 1975) is an English theatre actress and singer. Personal life Pilkington was born in Wigan. She trained at the Guildford School of Acting, graduating in 1997 with the Principal's Award. Pilkington marrie ...
- Belinda :David Savile - Sir Louis Cavagnari


Footnotes


External links


Extensive info on author
*
Obituary in the Guardian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaye, M. M. 1908 births 2004 deaths People from Shimla British historical novelists British crime fiction writers British women novelists 20th-century British novelists Women historical novelists Women crime fiction writers 20th-century British women writers Novelists from Himachal Pradesh Indian women novelists 20th-century Indian novelists Women writers from Himachal Pradesh 20th-century Indian women writers British people in colonial India