Letters Of An Indian Judge

by Dorothy Black (Anonymously)

Fictional letters of Arvind Nehra, an Indian Judge begins with a half-hour conversation at a party, but from that brief encounter between the wife of an English colonel and a young Indian judge, springs lifelong correspondence that is on the one hand one of the most moving records of a relationship ever published, and on the other a unique, first-hand account of the last days of the Raj.

Genres: Fiction, India, Asia, Politics

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Dorothy Delius Allan Black was born on 27 March 1890 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, UK. She was the daughter of Clare Delius (1866–1954), and her husband J. W. A. Black, her parents married in 1889. She was niece of the famous composer, Frederick Delius (1862–1934). Her mother wrote her brother's biography: Frederick Delius: Memories of my Brother. She married in 1916 with Hugh MacLeish.

She started to write very young, and had published novels since 1916. She used her maiden name Dorothy Black and the male pseudonym, Peter Delius. At first, she wrote diferent tipes of books, includes poetry and children's fiction, before center in romance fiction. She travelled widely as inspiration for her books set in diferent parts of the world. In 1934 published anonymously "Letters of an Indian judge to an English gentlewoman", later reedited under her name. During the summer of 1949, she assisted the writer Marion Crawford, who was writing a series of features on life with Princess Margaret. In 1960, Dorothy wrote her auto-biography "The foot of the rainbow", center in her writing career. In total, she published over a hundred of novels and several short stories.

Dorothy became a vice-president of the Romantic Novelists' Association, along with the mediatic writer Barbara Cartland. She passed away in 1977 in Scotland, UK.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at a charity shop in Edinburgh and brought it home with me. What a lovely read, and mysterious -- it's said to be a collection of letters written by an Indian judge to an Englishwoman he met once in Calcutta, only the authenticity of this claim can't be verified. (Hence my slotting this book into both fiction and nonfiction shelves!) If they are real letters, they must certainly have been edited and selected for continuity, because there's a wonderful arc in their attitude and tone. Anyway, they're an interesting, thoughtful glimpse into a different era and yet the same questions that everyone always wonders about: how to do good, the nature of humanity, and so forth.

[Barbara Rogers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok I picked this up for pennies in a second hand book kiosk … it started well but got increasingly boring and preachy and in the end it was so tedious I struggled to finish it but because it was short I persisted. Very outdated and not believable as a series of letters..

[Dorothy Himberc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-intentioned, interesting, hasn't aged entirely well.

Determined dislike of social welfare state, opposition to mixed-race marriages, a critique of interwar diplomacy that hardly looks prescient considering how much worse the war was that followed, finding it embarrassing that Mahatma Gandhi visited England because he wore his loincloth instead of a three-piece suit ... it's a document of its time (the 1930s) so it could be even worse, but I cringed several times.

Well-written. But I am sure that an educated judge who probably went through a boatload of colonial English-language education before he attended Cambridge would write a super-orthodox Victorian English without the mistakes in idiom that are in this book. Also for other reasons (it would be very indelicate of an English Gentlewoman to publish letters that are full of praise for her without saying anything complimentary to him too, for example) I'm convinced that these letters were not written by an actual Indian Judge.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lovely read. Gave a copy to my mom who gave one in turn to my old grandma way back when.

[Eashwari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Felicity · Rating 3 out of 5]

The doubtful authenticity of this one-sided correspondence did not not disturb me unduly, and I was willing to suspend my distaste for the deference of the Indian judge to the 'Lady Sahib', but the discovery that Black was the author of at least eighty works of romantic fiction severely tested my tolerance. I had hoped for an imaginative reconstruction of the end of an era as experienced by an English-educated Indian, but what I encountered was an imperial romance of British beneficence, tempered by some mild objections to the infantilising of Indians by their 'betters'. The Cambridge-educated judge's nostalgia for his alma mater and the beautiful Bridge of Sighs; his intolerance of his young wife's ignorance and obesity; his self-deprecation; his constant reference to his 'black face'; his criticism of Gandhi and his goat for making a jolly poor show by 'going native' in homespun kurta on his official business in London; the melodrama of his misguided freedom-fighting son; the courtesy of the memsahib's son in befriending the judge's second, sensible son, all contribute to a patronising portrait of the loyal Indian desiring respect rather than revolution. It's a readable but irredeemably reactionary romance of the Raj.

[Ian Laird · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was initially intrigued by this one as I believed it was actually written by an Indian judge.

My 1938 edition contains the publisher’s conviction that the letters were genuine. As the story unfolds we have an observer who is in the midst of Indian colonial judicial life. His experiences in administration and his personal milestones are absorbing. When he goes off to Burma his description of his work and his treatment are compelling. His marriage (arranged), adds to the sense of an insider’s account. I was a little disappointed that we only read his letters, not the Englishwoman’s; but that's OK, his side is probably the more interesting.

But by the time he got to London with Gandhi for the 1919 conference I started to think, hang on, this guy is always in the right place at the right time to witness or participate in significant developments in Indian colonial history. The story lost it for me when Nehra's son kills the official Nigel Hill. I thought this is got to be made up.

And so it seems to be. The text is ascribed to the English writer Dorothy Black. When I found this out (after reading the book), I felt a bit cheated. Like my wife, who after reading The 100 Foot Journey, was dismayed to find it had not been written by an Indian, but an Englishman.

[Nurture Waratah · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title implies, this book consists of a series of letters written by an Indian judge to an English lady. We do not see her replies to his letters, but we do see his responses to comments she has made. This gives us the sense of being a voyeur, peeking into the lives of the judge and his family. This book has an old-world charm to it that you rarely, if ever, see in modern novels and, lacking all the swearing, sex and gore so common to todays novels, it makes a nice change for evening reading.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simply brilliant book one of my very favourites

[Mary Ahlgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A kind of quiet, understated way to read about the turmoil and tribulation, not to mention racism, that is always part of colonialism.

[Marica Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most wonderful books anyone can read.