Books Reviewed by Title

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Books Reviewed by Author

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Authors who write Imperial Fiction

Ian Anderson
The writer of the Scarlet Riders series with the Mounties in Canada.

John Buchan
The early twentieth century writer of adventure and thriller stories - many set in an imperial context.

Alan Caillou aka Alex Webb aka Alan Lyle-Smythe
This screenwriter, actor and prolific writer had been an intelligence officer and an Imperial Police Commissioner in the 1940s. He drew heavily on these experiences for his fiction and autobiographical writing.

Robert Carter
From the Spanish Armada to Eighteenth Century India to the Taiping Rebellion - an eclectic collection of imperial related books.

James Clavell
A writer who specialised in Asia, with novels set in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Barbara Cleverly
The writer of crime fiction set in 1920s India

William Clive aka Ronald Bassett
The creator of Joseph Dando, a British Soldier in the 1850s and 1860s.

Stuart Cloete
An author who writes about Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular.

James Fenimore Cooper
Famous for his 'Last of the Mohicans' Cooper wrote four more books concerning the character from this novel and wrote many other colonial related books too.

Alan Dean Foster
Better known as a Science-Fiction author, Dean Foster turns his attention to New Zealand and the Maori in particular.

Emma Drummond aka Elizabeth Darrell
The writer of historical romances and adventures set in a variety of exotic imperial settings.

Dorothy Eden
A New Zealand writer of historical romance usually in a Victorian setting.

Robert Elegant
An author who writes about the Western influence on Asia and China. He dwells particularly on Shanghai and Hong Kong.

James Gordon Farrell
The comic author of the Empire Trilogy.

James L Haley
Usually a writer of Texan history, he has also written a remarkable book on the Lions of Tsavo.

Maurice Hennessy
An author interested in the Irish diaspora within the Empire.

M M Kaye
Romance and suspense in Indian and other Imperial settings.

Rudyard Kipling
Regarded as the bard of India and the Soldier's Friend

Garry Douglas Kilworth
'Fancy' Jack Crossman is a British soldier who does most of his fighting in the Crimean War. However, after that war he heads towards India on the eve of the Mutiny...

James Leasor aka Andrew MacAllan
An ex-soldier and journalist who has written on a wide variety of Imperial related fiction and non-fiction books. They are usually but not exclusively set in Asia or the Pacific Rim.

Allan Mallinson
Allan Mallinson was a Brigadier in the Light Dragoons, as an author he created the Matthew Hervey character of a cavalry officer who serves around the empire just after the end of the Napoleonic War.

George MacDonald Fraser
This author has taken the bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays and allowed him to mature into a cad and bounder who has adventures all over the Victorian Empire and beyond.

Philip McCutchan aka Duncan MacNeil
This author has written to sets of books with Imperial themes. One concerns a British soldier (Ogilvie) on the North West Frontier from 1880 to 1900. The other concerns an officer (Halfhyde) in the Royal Navy in the 1890s.

John Masters
The writer of novels following his semi-fictional Savage family in India.

Timeri Murari
An author who has resurrected Kipling's famous character Kim and had him grow up in the Imperial Raj.

Elizabeth Peters
The nineteenth and the early twentieth centurey provides the backdrop for this Anglo-American Archaeologist her family. Murder and mystery abound in the desert and digs under the sun.

Simon Raven
An ex- and an unconventional soldier who was fascinated by the decline of the upper and officer class at the tail end of empire.

Douglas Reeman
Known as a nautical writer, he has an interesting series tracking a family of Royal Marines from 1850 to 1982.

Wilbur Smith
This prolific African writer has set many of his novels in the African continent.

Paul Scott
A writer who concentrated on the last days of British India.

Robert Trevelyan aka Robert Forrest-Webb
The creator of Victorian secret agent John Hawke Trevelyan

Violet Vivian F Stuart Mann aka William Stuart Long aka V A Stuart
A writer of three series of Imperial era books: Series 1 is about Philip Hazard; a seaman in Crimea and beyond. Series 2 is about Alexander Sheridan; a soldier who gets caught up in the Indian Mutiny. Series 3 is entitled the Austrlians and tracks the history of the colony from the 18th to 20th Centuries.

John Wilcox
A writer who sets his stories of a fictional British officer in the middle to late Victorian period - 1870s to 1880s. He finds himself in many of the crucial battles at the apex of British Imperial ambition.

Anthologies and Collections
Books which bring together the fiction of a number of authors.

Magazines / Periodicals

British Empire Magazine
Orbis printed 96 weekly editions on the British Empire in the late 1970s. This was itself a reprint of a Time-Life / BBC series from the early 1970s. It was an extremely detailed and wide-ranging series of magazines and well worth trying to locate. You should be able to find them on Ebay

PDF Books available for Download

The British Empire
This was a tract written by T. A. Jackson of the British Communist Party in 1921. This Marxist interpretation is obviously hostile to the idea of Imperialism and looks forward to the day that the various imperial working classes unite as one. Notwithstanding class solidarity, it still sounds very condenscending to what the book refers to as 'coloured peoples of the Empire'.

The British Empire in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
This was a textbook issued in the inter-war years to students in Britain and around the Empire. It is obviously hagiographic about the Empire with an almost 'manifest destiny' idea of Imperialism. It ranges from the Napoleonic Wars to the end of the Great War.

The British Empire: Its origins and Destiny
A 1922 book from Canada. A pro-imperial tract originally taken from the Toronto Sentinel. This book is surprisingly religious in tone as it sought to find a biblican precedent for a Christian Empire - perhaps somewhat apposite given the Canadian experiences just a few years earlier during the Great War.

British Empire Series: Volume 1
This is an 1899 pro-imperial overview of the British Empire on a colony by colony basis. Many of the contributors were administrators or eminent pro-imperialists themselves. It was taken from a series of lectures given at the apogee of Imperial ambition - between Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee of 1897 and the setbacks of the Boer War. It was divided into five volumes. This volume discusses India, the Straits Settlements (Malaya), British North Borneo and Hong Kong. Read a contemporary book review

British Empire Series: Volume 4
This is the fourth of the above British Empire Series (not sure where volumes 2 and 3 have got to?). This volume discusses Australasia including the Australian states, New Zealand, New Guinea and various Pacific Islands. Interestingly, it was written just before the Federation of Australia in 1901.

British Empire Series: Volume 5
This is the fifth of the above British Empire Series (not sure where volumes 2 and 3 have got to?). This volume fills in the odds'n'sods. It is an eclectic collection of the various island colonies scattered across the Atlantic and Mediterranean. It also has variety of articles on the communication systems, commodoties and political systems in operation across the Empire, plus much more besides.

The British Empire: Six Lectures
Published in 1915 (at the height of the World War), this is a patriotic book designed to show why it was worth fighting for Britain and its illustrious Empire. It was something of a riposte to German criticisms and justification for the war in itself. The lectures cover the creation of the Empire and its development up to 1915.

Democracy and the British Empire
Written in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, this book attempted to place justify the enormous expansion of the Empire and justify its place as a possible Bulwark to the newly realised threat of Bolshevik Communism. In this cause it intellectually tried to tie the United States to British ideas of democracy before the US would withdraw into its period of isolationism.

Empire on the Seven Seas
This was a book written in 1940 and published in America. It was designed to demonstrate to an American audience that the USA had far more in common with the British Empire than with the Fascist states of Germany and Italy currently engaged in war with Britain or even with Communist USSR who were still technically signatories of the Nazi-Soviet pact at this time. The book was designed to nudge US support towards the British.

	Ian Anderson The writer of the Scarlet Riders series with the Mounties in Canada.
	John Buchan The early twentieth century writer of adventure and thriller stories - many set in an imperial context.
	Alan Caillou aka Alex Webb aka Alan Lyle-Smythe This screenwriter, actor and prolific writer had been an intelligence officer and an Imperial Police Commissioner in the 1940s. He drew heavily on these experiences for his fiction and autobiographical writing.
	Robert Carter From the Spanish Armada to Eighteenth Century India to the Taiping Rebellion - an eclectic collection of imperial related books.
	James Clavell A writer who specialised in Asia, with novels set in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.
	Barbara Cleverly The writer of crime fiction set in 1920s India
	William Clive aka Ronald Bassett The creator of Joseph Dando, a British Soldier in the 1850s and 1860s.
	Stuart Cloete An author who writes about Africa in general and Southern Africa in particular.
	James Fenimore Cooper Famous for his 'Last of the Mohicans' Cooper wrote four more books concerning the character from this novel and wrote many other colonial related books too.
	Alan Dean Foster Better known as a Science-Fiction author, Dean Foster turns his attention to New Zealand and the Maori in particular.
	Emma Drummond aka Elizabeth Darrell The writer of historical romances and adventures set in a variety of exotic imperial settings.
	Dorothy Eden A New Zealand writer of historical romance usually in a Victorian setting.
	Robert Elegant An author who writes about the Western influence on Asia and China. He dwells particularly on Shanghai and Hong Kong.
	James Gordon Farrell The comic author of the Empire Trilogy.
	James L Haley Usually a writer of Texan history, he has also written a remarkable book on the Lions of Tsavo.
	Maurice Hennessy An author interested in the Irish diaspora within the Empire.
	M M Kaye Romance and suspense in Indian and other Imperial settings.
	Rudyard Kipling Regarded as the bard of India and the Soldier's Friend
	Garry Douglas Kilworth 'Fancy' Jack Crossman is a British soldier who does most of his fighting in the Crimean War. However, after that war he heads towards India on the eve of the Mutiny...
	James Leasor aka Andrew MacAllan An ex-soldier and journalist who has written on a wide variety of Imperial related fiction and non-fiction books. They are usually but not exclusively set in Asia or the Pacific Rim.
	Allan Mallinson Allan Mallinson was a Brigadier in the Light Dragoons, as an author he created the Matthew Hervey character of a cavalry officer who serves around the empire just after the end of the Napoleonic War.
	George MacDonald Fraser This author has taken the bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays and allowed him to mature into a cad and bounder who has adventures all over the Victorian Empire and beyond.
	Philip McCutchan aka Duncan MacNeil This author has written to sets of books with Imperial themes. One concerns a British soldier (Ogilvie) on the North West Frontier from 1880 to 1900. The other concerns an officer (Halfhyde) in the Royal Navy in the 1890s.
	John Masters The writer of novels following his semi-fictional Savage family in India.
	Timeri Murari An author who has resurrected Kipling's famous character Kim and had him grow up in the Imperial Raj.
	Elizabeth Peters The nineteenth and the early twentieth centurey provides the backdrop for this Anglo-American Archaeologist her family. Murder and mystery abound in the desert and digs under the sun.
	Simon Raven An ex- and an unconventional soldier who was fascinated by the decline of the upper and officer class at the tail end of empire.
	Douglas Reeman Known as a nautical writer, he has an interesting series tracking a family of Royal Marines from 1850 to 1982.
	Wilbur Smith This prolific African writer has set many of his novels in the African continent.
	Paul Scott A writer who concentrated on the last days of British India.
	Robert Trevelyan aka Robert Forrest-Webb The creator of Victorian secret agent John Hawke Trevelyan
	Violet Vivian F Stuart Mann aka William Stuart Long aka V A Stuart A writer of three series of Imperial era books: Series 1 is about Philip Hazard; a seaman in Crimea and beyond. Series 2 is about Alexander Sheridan; a soldier who gets caught up in the Indian Mutiny. Series 3 is entitled the Austrlians and tracks the history of the colony from the 18th to 20th Centuries.
	John Wilcox A writer who sets his stories of a fictional British officer in the middle to late Victorian period - 1870s to 1880s. He finds himself in many of the crucial battles at the apex of British Imperial ambition.
	Anthologies and Collections Books which bring together the fiction of a number of authors.

	The British Empire This was a tract written by T. A. Jackson of the British Communist Party in 1921. This Marxist interpretation is obviously hostile to the idea of Imperialism and looks forward to the day that the various imperial working classes unite as one. Notwithstanding class solidarity, it still sounds very condenscending to what the book refers to as 'coloured peoples of the Empire'.
	The British Empire in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century This was a textbook issued in the inter-war years to students in Britain and around the Empire. It is obviously hagiographic about the Empire with an almost 'manifest destiny' idea of Imperialism. It ranges from the Napoleonic Wars to the end of the Great War.
	The British Empire: Its origins and Destiny A 1922 book from Canada. A pro-imperial tract originally taken from the Toronto Sentinel. This book is surprisingly religious in tone as it sought to find a biblican precedent for a Christian Empire - perhaps somewhat apposite given the Canadian experiences just a few years earlier during the Great War.
	British Empire Series: Volume 1 This is an 1899 pro-imperial overview of the British Empire on a colony by colony basis. Many of the contributors were administrators or eminent pro-imperialists themselves. It was taken from a series of lectures given at the apogee of Imperial ambition - between Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee of 1897 and the setbacks of the Boer War. It was divided into five volumes. This volume discusses India, the Straits Settlements (Malaya), British North Borneo and Hong Kong. Read a contemporary book review
	British Empire Series: Volume 4 This is the fourth of the above British Empire Series (not sure where volumes 2 and 3 have got to?). This volume discusses Australasia including the Australian states, New Zealand, New Guinea and various Pacific Islands. Interestingly, it was written just before the Federation of Australia in 1901.
	British Empire Series: Volume 5 This is the fifth of the above British Empire Series (not sure where volumes 2 and 3 have got to?). This volume fills in the odds'n'sods. It is an eclectic collection of the various island colonies scattered across the Atlantic and Mediterranean. It also has variety of articles on the communication systems, commodoties and political systems in operation across the Empire, plus much more besides.
	The British Empire: Six Lectures Published in 1915 (at the height of the World War), this is a patriotic book designed to show why it was worth fighting for Britain and its illustrious Empire. It was something of a riposte to German criticisms and justification for the war in itself. The lectures cover the creation of the Empire and its development up to 1915.
	Democracy and the British Empire Written in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, this book attempted to place justify the enormous expansion of the Empire and justify its place as a possible Bulwark to the newly realised threat of Bolshevik Communism. In this cause it intellectually tried to tie the United States to British ideas of democracy before the US would withdraw into its period of isolationism.
	Empire on the Seven Seas This was a book written in 1940 and published in America. It was designed to demonstrate to an American audience that the USA had far more in common with the British Empire than with the Fascist states of Germany and Italy currently engaged in war with Britain or even with Communist USSR who were still technically signatories of the Nazi-Soviet pact at this time. The book was designed to nudge US support towards the British.