Maurice Collis – författare

Foreign Mud is one of the most distinguished of Maurice Collis' works of history. This account of the struggle between the British and Chinese in the Opium War in Canton in the 1830s has a vividness that comes from 20 years of experience in the Far East as a civil servant.'The story of the Opium War does not lend itself to natural composition; it violates all the established rules of dramatric art; it does not begin at the right moment and it prolongs its end long after the climax has been reached. Collis has handled this intraceable material with surety of touch . . . The result is a self-contained narrative, lucid, balanced and creating a untiy of impression . . . so lucid, so human, so amusing, and so fair.' Daily Telegraph

Foremost among the biographies that Maurice Collis wrote during his wide-ranging literary career is Siamese White - an account of the career of Samuel White of Bath who, during the reign of James II, was appointed by the King of Siam as a mandarin of that country. The book superbly embodies that old adage - truth is stranger than fiction.'A magnificent story, full of interest and excitement, but there is more to it than that. Collis, who has lived for years on the scene of these high happenings, is able to give us a first-hand picture of a fascinating land: of a lovely archipelago, of rivers and rapids, of an immemorial track through jungles haunted by tigers and malaria.' Evening Standard

"This is an unpretentious book, but it brings out with unusual clearness the dilemma that faces every official in an empire like our own." George OrwellTRIALS IN BURMA recounts Maurice Collis' experiences as a district magistrate in Rangoon in the late 1920s. The book recounts his gradual realisation that far from administering an impartial system of justice, he is expected to protect British interests. Wriiten in a cool dispassionate style, Collis describes how - be choosing integrity over career, he eventually loses his job."A brilliant, direct and extraordinarily vivid account of this troubled period...a masterly survey of the Burmese scene." Daily Mail

A hybrid of history and biography, Maurice Collis’s The Land of the Great Image concerns a little-known Portuguese friar abroad in early seventeenth-century Asia. The book chronicles the great diplomatic coup of Friar Manrique’s career, opening the kingdom of Arakan, now Burma (land of the “great image” of the Buddha) to the Church and to Portuguese trade, Dispatched from Goa, capital of the now almost forgotten Portuguese empire in Asia, Manrique made his way across and around the Bay of Bengal, surviving shipwreck, tigers, and pirates, to reach the court of King Thiri-thu-dhamma. And all along Manrique’s way the author waits at every turn with another curiosity, another historical tidbit for the reader to relish. Collis notes how trials of the Inquisition were run (which too had set up shop in Goa); the luxury enjoyed by Europeans in the East; what was served for dinner at court; how elephant warfare was waged; and what went into a potion magically brewed to bring glory to King Thiri-thu-dhamina (the hearts of 2,000 white doves, 4,000 white cows, and 6,000 of his subjects).

Landing on the Mexican coast on Good Friday, 1519, Hernán Cortés felthimself the bearer of a divine burden to conquer and convert the firstadvanced civilization Europeans had yet encountered in the West. ForMontezuma, leader of the Mexicans, April 21, 1519 (known in theirsophisticated astronomical system as 9 Wind Day) was the precise date ofa dire prophesy: the return of Quetzalcoatl, a fearsome god predictedto arrive by ship, from the East, with light skin, a black beard, robedin black—exactly as Cortés would. The ensuing drama is described byeminent historian Maurice Collis in a style that is equal parts storyand scholarship. Though its consequences have been treated by writers asdiverse as D.H. Lawrence and Charles Olson, never before have the factsof this event been rendered with such extraordinary clarity andelegance.

This volume is based on the memoirs of the Augustinian friar Sebastien Manrique’s expedition to South and Southeast Asia from ad 1590-1600. The biographical account begins with the intricate details about the Portuguese colony of Goa, which Manrique calls ‘Golden Goa’. The author narrates Manrique’s visit to a Jesuit-run hospital in Goa, his pilgrimage to Bom Jesus Basilica, and the embalmed mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier, the revered Roman Catholic saint of Goa. The memoir describes the Jesuit missionary’s visit to the Mughal court under Akbar, Manrique's meeting with Roberto de Nobili and other Augustinian friars, and his visit to Bengal, around Hooghly, where an Augustinian monastery was located.

The book is about the career of Samuel White during his stay in the Siam region, which is the modern-day Thailand. White was declared the ruler of Siam under James II of England. The book contains a description of the Anglo-Siamese War, which was conducted in the year 1687-88, which was between the English East India Company and the Kingdom of Siam. The book also contains a letter from White related to his kinsmen, preserved in the Bath Municipal Library, which dates back to 1683.