Cottage Folk

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The Novel of the Indian Mutiny
On the Face of the Waters
By FLORA ANNIE STEEL
In One Volume, Crown 8vo, price 6s. Twenty-Eighth Thousand
The Spectator. —“We have read Mrs. Steel’s book with ever-increasing surprise and admiration—surprise at her insight into people with whom she can scarcely have been intimate, admiration for the genius which has enabled her to realize that wonderful welter of the East and West, which Delhi must have presented just before the Mutiny. We know in literature of few sketches better than those which reveal to us Buhadur Shah, the last great Moghul ... or that of Zeemet Maihl, the evil Queen, ... or of the Moulaire, who roused by his preaching the war against the English, ... or of Tiddu, the hereditary juggler-actor, ... or of Soma, the haughty, sullen Sepoy. And the best evidence of Mrs. Steel’s genius is that those who can scarcely conceive the society will feel certain that it is truly drawn. There is many an officer who would give his sword to write military history as Mrs. Steel has written the history of the rising, the siege, and the storm. It is the most wonderful picture. We know that none who lived through the Mutiny will lay the book down without a gasp of admiration, and believe that the same emotion will be felt by thousands to whom the scenes depicted are but lurid phantasmagoria.”
The Academy. —“All that relates to the natives, whether to the sepoys, or the Court, or the town, is admirable; and the sketches of British military and civil life are absolutely convincing. Mrs. Steel sees detail everywhere, and records it minutely; but she is full of humanity, and can give us the mysticism of the Oriental as faithfully as the easy-going morality of the Anglo-Indian. Each incident, almost each chapter, is a picture by itself, revealing an extraordinary wealth of descriptive power, and a masterly insight into character.”