As a whole,
The Raj Quartetdeals with the years from the Quit India campaign of the Congress Committee to Indian Independence: a deliberate cycle of five years from August 1942 to August 1947. Broadly speaking, each novel follows on chronologically from the previous one, but there is considerable use of prolepsis and flashback.
The Jewel in the Crown(1966) is the first novel of the tetralogy and it is divided into seven parts. All of the novel is set in the fictional town of Mayapore (
mayameans illusion). Part One reconstructs the history of Edwina Crane, a teacher who becomes a missionary in the Indian Education Service. Her story is, at least in part, based on that of Marcella Sherwood, an English School Superintendent, and in particular on the “Amritsar Incident”. In 1919,…
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Citation: Childs, Peter. "The Jewel in the Crown". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=470, accessed 23 November 2024.]
