The Raj Quartet – Volume 1

by Paul Scott Book 1 in the The Raj Quartet series.

First published 2007

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The Jewel in the Crown opens in the fictional city of Mayapore in 1942, as the Second World War, fear of Japanese advance and the Quit India campaign intensify the strain on British rule. Daphne Manners forms a relationship with Hari Kumar, an Indian educated in England whose manner and loyalties unsettle colonial assumptions. After Daphne is assaulted in the Bibighar Gardens, district police superintendent Ronald Merrick arrests and brutalises Hari, turning an unresolved crime into a demonstration of racial and official power.

The Day of the Scorpion expands the narrative through the Layton family and the princely state of Mirat. Sarah Layton begins to recognise the evasions on which her family’s position depends, while soldiers, civil servants, missionaries and Indian political figures respond differently to imprisonment, war and the prospect of independence. The consequences of the Mayapore case continue to spread, revealing how personal fear and ambition reinforce a colonial system already moving towards dissolution.