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Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary
In 1876 Sophia Duleep Singh was born into Indian royalty. Her father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, was heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs, one of the greatest empires of the Indian subcontinent, a realm that stretched from the lush Kashmir Valley to the craggy foothills of the Khyber Pass and included the mighty cities of Lahore and Peshawar. It was a territory irresistible to the British, who plundered everything, including the fabled Koh-I-Noor diamond.
Exiled to England, the dispossessed Maharajah transformed his estate at Elveden in Suffolk into a Moghul palace, its grounds stocked with leopards, monkeys and exotic birds. Sophia, god-daughter of Queen Victoria, was raised a genteel aristocratic Englishwoman: presented at court, afforded grace and favor lodgings at Hampton Court Palace and photographed wearing the latest fashions for the society pages. But when, in secret defiance of the British government, she travelled to India, she returned a revolutionary.
Sophia transcended her heritage to devote herself to battling injustice and inequality, a far cry from the life to which she was born. Her causes were the struggle for Indian Independence, the fate of the lascars, the welfare of Indian soldiers in the First World War – and, above all, the fight for female suffrage. She was bold and fearless, attacking politicians, putting herself in the front line and swapping her silks for a nurse's uniform to tend wounded soldiers evacuated from the battlefields. Meticulously researched and passionately written, this enthralling story of the rise of women and the fall of empire introduces an extraordinary individual and her part in the defining moments of recent British and Indian history.
Exiled to England, the dispossessed Maharajah transformed his estate at Elveden in Suffolk into a Moghul palace, its grounds stocked with leopards, monkeys and exotic birds. Sophia, god-daughter of Queen Victoria, was raised a genteel aristocratic Englishwoman: presented at court, afforded grace and favor lodgings at Hampton Court Palace and photographed wearing the latest fashions for the society pages. But when, in secret defiance of the British government, she travelled to India, she returned a revolutionary.
Sophia transcended her heritage to devote herself to battling injustice and inequality, a far cry from the life to which she was born. Her causes were the struggle for Indian Independence, the fate of the lascars, the welfare of Indian soldiers in the First World War – and, above all, the fight for female suffrage. She was bold and fearless, attacking politicians, putting herself in the front line and swapping her silks for a nurse's uniform to tend wounded soldiers evacuated from the battlefields. Meticulously researched and passionately written, this enthralling story of the rise of women and the fall of empire introduces an extraordinary individual and her part in the defining moments of recent British and Indian history.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published January 13, 2015
165 people are currently reading
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About the author
Anita Anand
20 books232 followersAnita Anand is a British radio and television presenter, author, and journalist.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 237 reviews
May 6, 2019
Wow, I really loved this book. All the way through, except for the very beginning, which now in retrospect I think was good. I was going to give the book four stars. By the end, I realized I had come to know Sophia so very well and I liked her so very much that I simply had to give the book five stars. I was happy that the author focused on Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh (1876 – 1948), even though any of the siblings could have been the focus of a book.
I will have to backtrack. I like Sophia as an ordinary person. She had humility and she never sold herself. She could have disappeared into history had the author not written this book. She may have been a princess, but that is not why I grew to like her so very much.
You pronounce Sophia, not in the ordinary fashion. Say "so" then "f" then "eye". The accent is on the last syllable.
The book starts with a brief history of the Punjab region (which comprises today vast areas of northern India and eastern Pakistan) and how Sikhism came to be. Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus lived together in peace. This introduction is brief, and it gives a good background to what follows. It needs to be included, even if it is dry and difficult to absorb.
Then the real story begins with Sophia's famed grandfather, who was King of the Punjab, proceeds to discuss her deposed father and mother and finally focuses on Sophia and her surviving five siblings who grew up at the estate Elveden in Suffolk. Here her father recreated a Moghul palace with gardens, leopards, monkeys and exotic birds! Queen Victoria was godmother to both Sophia and her oldest brother Victor. The fabled Koh-I-Noor diamond was in fact her family's. The first half of the book follows all of the siblings, not just Sophia, so the title is a bit deceptive.
Sophia was an important woman suffragette, a lover of dogs, a caring woman. Her oldest sister Bamba consistently bristled with antagonism. Catherine, the next oldest, settled herself with a female lover in Germany and never saw eye-to-eye over Sophia’s menagerie of dogs. Even if all three sisters and the brothers, Victor and Freddie and Eddie, were as different as siblings can be, they loved each other. You felt this. You see them spar against each other, grumble and joke. They are family, with all that implies. There are half-sisters too! You follow this entire family.
At the same time you watch India’s path toward independence seen from the Indian perspective. You see the role Indian soldiers played in the First World War. I have read many books on this war, but never from this angle. I have read about suffragettes, but never in such detail. You stop and wonder where you would stand. I wasn’t aware of the virulence involved - arson, the stoning of windows the refusal to pay taxes, and the ways in which the suffragettes supported each other. Hunger strikes and forced feedings. All of this is not only terribly interesting but also movingly told. History is told from the perspective of Sophia and her siblings. Each of the siblings reacted in their own way. Totally fascinating.
Sophia’s letters are gone, but the author has found people who lived with her during the Second World War, evacuees and children and the housemaid. What they have to say is revealing. The book covers the entire lives of all the family members.
The audiobook narration by Tania Rodrigues was superb. The accent was British, utterly delightful and easy to follow. I did have trouble with the Indian names, but this never became a problem. The written book and the narration both get five stars.
I want people to read this book. It is the kind of biography that I love because it gets you so close to the people/person described, particularly Sophia. It also teaches history through one person's life. That is how I want history to be taught.
I will have to backtrack. I like Sophia as an ordinary person. She had humility and she never sold herself. She could have disappeared into history had the author not written this book. She may have been a princess, but that is not why I grew to like her so very much.
You pronounce Sophia, not in the ordinary fashion. Say "so" then "f" then "eye". The accent is on the last syllable.
The book starts with a brief history of the Punjab region (which comprises today vast areas of northern India and eastern Pakistan) and how Sikhism came to be. Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus lived together in peace. This introduction is brief, and it gives a good background to what follows. It needs to be included, even if it is dry and difficult to absorb.
Then the real story begins with Sophia's famed grandfather, who was King of the Punjab, proceeds to discuss her deposed father and mother and finally focuses on Sophia and her surviving five siblings who grew up at the estate Elveden in Suffolk. Here her father recreated a Moghul palace with gardens, leopards, monkeys and exotic birds! Queen Victoria was godmother to both Sophia and her oldest brother Victor. The fabled Koh-I-Noor diamond was in fact her family's. The first half of the book follows all of the siblings, not just Sophia, so the title is a bit deceptive.
Sophia was an important woman suffragette, a lover of dogs, a caring woman. Her oldest sister Bamba consistently bristled with antagonism. Catherine, the next oldest, settled herself with a female lover in Germany and never saw eye-to-eye over Sophia’s menagerie of dogs. Even if all three sisters and the brothers, Victor and Freddie and Eddie, were as different as siblings can be, they loved each other. You felt this. You see them spar against each other, grumble and joke. They are family, with all that implies. There are half-sisters too! You follow this entire family.
At the same time you watch India’s path toward independence seen from the Indian perspective. You see the role Indian soldiers played in the First World War. I have read many books on this war, but never from this angle. I have read about suffragettes, but never in such detail. You stop and wonder where you would stand. I wasn’t aware of the virulence involved - arson, the stoning of windows the refusal to pay taxes, and the ways in which the suffragettes supported each other. Hunger strikes and forced feedings. All of this is not only terribly interesting but also movingly told. History is told from the perspective of Sophia and her siblings. Each of the siblings reacted in their own way. Totally fascinating.
Sophia’s letters are gone, but the author has found people who lived with her during the Second World War, evacuees and children and the housemaid. What they have to say is revealing. The book covers the entire lives of all the family members.
The audiobook narration by Tania Rodrigues was superb. The accent was British, utterly delightful and easy to follow. I did have trouble with the Indian names, but this never became a problem. The written book and the narration both get five stars.
I want people to read this book. It is the kind of biography that I love because it gets you so close to the people/person described, particularly Sophia. It also teaches history through one person's life. That is how I want history to be taught.
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December 11, 2017Bio of Indian suffragette Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. This is an absolutely amazing story. Sophia was the daughter of Duleep Singh, the last maharaja of the Sikh empire who was forced to sign over his power to the British Raj as a boy. She was brought up in England, god-daughter of Queen, yet still treated like a second class citizen, and she found her purpose in fighting alongside the suffragettes. She tried her hardest to get arrested, used her power for publicity, and then when war broke out she made a spectacular contribution to funds for sepoys (Indian soldiers, grossly underequipped by the British) and worked as a nurse for Sikh soldiers. All this while suffering from lifelong and dreadful depression and a spectacularly terrible family life.
This story is told with a ton of context, starting with Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab, and filling in Gandhi's activities and the struggle for Indian independence. I needed this because despite studying British history up to the age of 18, I had precisely no (that's zero) lessons covering India, an entire continent that the British stole which had a gigantic influence on economics, history, immigration. Amazing, isn't it.
This is hugely readable and compelling, written with vivid description and a lot of jaw-dropping stories aboout bad behaviour in high society, as well as the grotesque injustice of the Raj. It is incredible how completely a literal princess, who sat next to Besant and Pankhurst on the stage at meetings, has been airbrushed out of the suffragette story. Massively recommended.
This story is told with a ton of context, starting with Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab, and filling in Gandhi's activities and the struggle for Indian independence. I needed this because despite studying British history up to the age of 18, I had precisely no (that's zero) lessons covering India, an entire continent that the British stole which had a gigantic influence on economics, history, immigration. Amazing, isn't it.
This is hugely readable and compelling, written with vivid description and a lot of jaw-dropping stories aboout bad behaviour in high society, as well as the grotesque injustice of the Raj. It is incredible how completely a literal princess, who sat next to Besant and Pankhurst on the stage at meetings, has been airbrushed out of the suffragette story. Massively recommended.
January 9, 2020
Biography of Sophia Duleep Singh, granddaughter of Ranjit Singh the legendary Maharajah of the Sikh Empire, her father Duleep (Ranjit’s youngest son and the last Maharajah) was effectively the puppet ruler of the Kingdom under British governance before being deposed (having signed over the Empire and the Koh-i-Noor diamond to Queen Victoria), Anglicised and then exiled to England where he became a favourite of Queen Victoria and where Sophia was born (with Victoria as her godmother). She later became a prominent and controversial (given her links to the Royal Family and the sensitivity of the British Rule in the Raj) campaigner both for Indian rights in England (campaigning both for Lascars and later for injured WWI Sepoys) and for woman’s rights (becoming an increasingly prominent and militant Suffragette, particularly in the Women’s Tax Resistance League).
The biography is well written. It is readable and engrossing. Most importantly it includes just the right level of historical detail (on the operation of the Raj, the burgeoning Indian independence movement and the Suffragette movement) alongside the biographical detail to keep the account hugely informative (the book would for example serve as an inside account of each of those areas in its own right) while not detracting from the central story.
The book very much tells the story on its own terms and historical context. There is no attempt made to try and link events to current events and themes. Overall this is refreshing (such comparisons are frequently over-bearing, presumptuous – the reader can choose to draw her/his own links and anachronistic).
However at times it can be hard not to wish the author would bring more of a modern or judgmental eye to the book. As an example, if there is a weak point it is the largely sympathetic account of Sophia and her family and their complaints to the authorities about their hardships (normally that their allowances, despite being huge multiples of standard wages, and which have largely been frittered on at best extravagances and at worse dissolute living) are inadequate. They often correctly point out that their kingdom and fortune was stolen from them, but it is still hard to see them as anything other than entitled and privileged and there is an excellent passage when Sophia travels to America and is demolished by one of the American papers for her inability to (in modern parlance) “check her privilege” when condemning women’s rights in America.
The biography is well written. It is readable and engrossing. Most importantly it includes just the right level of historical detail (on the operation of the Raj, the burgeoning Indian independence movement and the Suffragette movement) alongside the biographical detail to keep the account hugely informative (the book would for example serve as an inside account of each of those areas in its own right) while not detracting from the central story.
The book very much tells the story on its own terms and historical context. There is no attempt made to try and link events to current events and themes. Overall this is refreshing (such comparisons are frequently over-bearing, presumptuous – the reader can choose to draw her/his own links and anachronistic).
However at times it can be hard not to wish the author would bring more of a modern or judgmental eye to the book. As an example, if there is a weak point it is the largely sympathetic account of Sophia and her family and their complaints to the authorities about their hardships (normally that their allowances, despite being huge multiples of standard wages, and which have largely been frittered on at best extravagances and at worse dissolute living) are inadequate. They often correctly point out that their kingdom and fortune was stolen from them, but it is still hard to see them as anything other than entitled and privileged and there is an excellent passage when Sophia travels to America and is demolished by one of the American papers for her inability to (in modern parlance) “check her privilege” when condemning women’s rights in America.
June 4, 2018
A fascinating account of the life of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. And what a life it was... In fact, we get a whole lot more than Sophia's life as the book begins with her family background. Her grandfather was the Lion of the Punjab; her father had his heritage and wealth stolen from him by the British when just a child and was brought to England to become a favorite plaything of Queen Victoria. He grew up to be a womanizing spendthrift, surprise surprise, and his children were regarded with that typical mixture of condescension and suspicion that the Victorians tended to apply to anyone brown. For much of their lives they weren't even allowed to visit India because of what they represented in Indian eyes, the former power and glory that the Raj had ended. Sophia and her siblings had spies assigned to keep an eye on them their entire lives. The British establishment provided them with enough of a living standard to keep them quiet, and their family line died with them.
Sophia seems to have been a woman in search of a purpose in life. At one point she became a famous socialite and fashion icon; then a successful dog breeder and show competitor; and then abandoned it all to throw herself into the suffragette cause (she was never prosecuted for her militant activities because of her connection to her godmother Queen Victoria). Her life intersected with a whole cast of famous characters and some who should be more famous but aren't--like her, they were women and/or non-whites and their stories were systematically hidden from public view.
Author Anita Anand does a thorough, entertaining job with this biography and the audiobook is splendidly narrated by Tania Rodrigues. I was sorry when it ended.
Sophia seems to have been a woman in search of a purpose in life. At one point she became a famous socialite and fashion icon; then a successful dog breeder and show competitor; and then abandoned it all to throw herself into the suffragette cause (she was never prosecuted for her militant activities because of her connection to her godmother Queen Victoria). Her life intersected with a whole cast of famous characters and some who should be more famous but aren't--like her, they were women and/or non-whites and their stories were systematically hidden from public view.
Author Anita Anand does a thorough, entertaining job with this biography and the audiobook is splendidly narrated by Tania Rodrigues. I was sorry when it ended.
June 2, 2015
Those suffragettes were frickin awesome.
Sophia was especially awesome. I like that she got involved in activism in her 30's. I like how she used her class privilege/ princess status to get more attention for women's rights.
Also, the British did f-ed up things in Punjab. Not a surprise.
Also also, did you know concentration camps were invented in South Africa by a British commander to use primarily against the Boers? And that Gandhi learned about hunger strikes from suffragettes in British prisons?
I guess I should probably mention that this book is SO GOOD.
Sophia was especially awesome. I like that she got involved in activism in her 30's. I like how she used her class privilege/ princess status to get more attention for women's rights.
Also, the British did f-ed up things in Punjab. Not a surprise.
Also also, did you know concentration camps were invented in South Africa by a British commander to use primarily against the Boers? And that Gandhi learned about hunger strikes from suffragettes in British prisons?
I guess I should probably mention that this book is SO GOOD.
April 26, 2016
Ranjit Singh was the last ruling emperor of the Punjab.
After his death, the British used the confusion surrounding his heirs' succession to move into the area. Most of the adult heirs died suspiciously. When it was over, the ruler of this prosperous area was an 1o year old boy, Duleep. His mother was very politically astute so the British had her exiled from the country and then forced the child-king to sign over his lands and the symbol of his rule, the Kor-i-Noor diamond.
Duleep Singh was then raised by British people until Queen Victoria decided that he was really cute and wanted him to go to England. She lavished attention on him and considered herself to be his best friend. He was not reunited with his mother until he was an adult.
Eventually Duleep married a woman from Egypt and had six children. The children were known as Princes and Princesses. Princess Sophia was his youngest surviving child from this marriage. Arrangements were made with the India office to provide for the family because they did not want them going back to India and stirring up trouble.
Sophia grew up in luxury until her father's debts became too much. He then tried to return to India with the family but was taken off the ship at the Suez Canal. The family was sent back to England but Duleep Singh did not go with them. Instead he publicly disowned them and started another family while trying to get back to India. He never did.
Sophia and her sisters were able to get to India as adults. The experience of meeting people fighting for Indian independence awoke the political consciousness of Sophia. She returned to England and threw herself into the fight of Women's Suffrage in the 1910s.
I love this picture. Sophia lived across the street from the gates of Hampton Court Palace in a grace-and-favor house. That meant that she was allowed to live there as a favor from the monarch. She protested in front of the tourists coming to Hampton Court and sold suffragette newspapers to them. Despite being involved in many of the major protests of the era and even attacking politicians, she was never sent to prison like her fellow suffragettes. She even refused to pay any taxes in an attempt to get arrested. The spectacle of putting a Princess in prison was too much for law enforcement.
World War I curtailed the suffragette movement. She became a nurse for Indian soldiers brought back to England for rest.
While I was reading this book, the Indian solicitor-general came out and said that India should not try to get the Kor-i-Noor diamond back and said it was "neither stolen nor forcibly taken". It was a present. Yeah, because a 10 year old with no friendly adult counsel can make those kinds of gifts.
The Kor-i-noor is the diamond in the center of the front cross on this crown. This is what reading nonfiction gets you. It gets you yelling at the news in an very angry, yet informed, way.
The part of the book I found the most touching was a memory of the daughter of the elderly Princess' housekeeper.
"We'd be walking, and she'd be telling me about the world and elections and how important they were. And then she would kneel down in front of me, looking me right in the eye and say 'I want a solemn promise from you' even though I don't think I knew what a solemn promise was at that stage. She would say 'You are never, ever not to vote. You must promise me. When you are allowed to vote you are never, ever to fail to do so. You don't realise how far we've come. Promise me.' For the next three years, Sophia made Drovna promise again and again."
Drovna has kept her promise to the woman who fought hard to win the right for English women to vote.This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
June 21, 2016
Initially, I didn't like this book as well as I expected to, considering the reviews I read. However, by the end of the book it was a definite 4 stars. As an Indian princess who lived most of her life in exile in England, Sophia's history necessarily begins in the Punjab in India. The beginning third of the book which gives us this background is the weakest part of the book. The final third, which describes the history of India during her lifetime and when she is finally able to return, is in my mind the best part of the book and redeemed it for me. The author does an excellent job describing India during the struggle for independence.
Part II of the book describes Sophia's life as an activist, primarily as a suffragette. It gives a good picture of the later more militant part of the suffrage movement, specifically her involvement in the WSPU under Emmeline Pankhurst. Most of my reading about suffrage has been about the movement in the US, so the information was good, but the level of violence by the organization was a surprise to me, specifically the firebombing. Although Sophia didn't firebomb anything, she did participate in acts that resulted in arrest for others, but not for her because of her political visibility.
Although Sophia was involved in a number of causes during her life, I was left with the feeling that her passionate nature resulted in her being caught up in the causes of others rather than those that might have been her own choice without their influence, and that on some level she was used by them. Less emphasis was put on her work on behalf of Indian soldiers and the lascars, although these seemed to be causes that were not unique to her, but ones which she chose without undue influence.
I do think that this is an important book. Most of the history of suffrage on both sides of the Atlantic has been about white women, although they certainly weren't the only ones involved. It's nice to see a woman of color being given her due.
Part II of the book describes Sophia's life as an activist, primarily as a suffragette. It gives a good picture of the later more militant part of the suffrage movement, specifically her involvement in the WSPU under Emmeline Pankhurst. Most of my reading about suffrage has been about the movement in the US, so the information was good, but the level of violence by the organization was a surprise to me, specifically the firebombing. Although Sophia didn't firebomb anything, she did participate in acts that resulted in arrest for others, but not for her because of her political visibility.
Although Sophia was involved in a number of causes during her life, I was left with the feeling that her passionate nature resulted in her being caught up in the causes of others rather than those that might have been her own choice without their influence, and that on some level she was used by them. Less emphasis was put on her work on behalf of Indian soldiers and the lascars, although these seemed to be causes that were not unique to her, but ones which she chose without undue influence.
I do think that this is an important book. Most of the history of suffrage on both sides of the Atlantic has been about white women, although they certainly weren't the only ones involved. It's nice to see a woman of color being given her due.
April 28, 2019
A long and meticulously detailed history with subject matter that is much more wide-ranging than the title might suggest. Sophia Duleep Singh is simply the central character allowing Anand to document various moments in history ranging from the formation of the Punjab Sikh Empire under Ranjit Singh through to the early years of the Second World War. There are certain sections that I really enjoyed and that are really memorably written, particularly the description of the work of the Suffragettes in the WSPU, led by Emmeline Pankhurst. Although I knew a little about the civil disobedience and direct action these women undertook, I didn't know the true extent of the grit and determination (and violence) that they showed in order to achieve their aims. There are so many really amazing people that I would like to read more about. The reason I have not given it a higher rating is that I was often bored, mainly because of the lack of interest I had in the Duleep Singh family members (and Sophia herself in some way). They definitely experienced hardships and sadness in their life but a lot of this seems to be self-inflicted, driven by their sense of entitlement, arrogance and profligacy. Sure, they are royals living in the Victorian and Edwardian era when social relations were different and their true wealth had been seized from them with the annexation of the Punjab by the British, but I still found it difficult to feel sympathy for any of them. In spite of that, I still enjoyed the overall work and want to read Anand's next book, The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence, which looks to be another fascinating story.
February 5, 2017
This was really fascinating! It's really not just a biography of Sophia, but also of her entire family and their tragic history with the British crown. It definitely made me realize that I know much less about the suffragette movement in the UK than I thought (Mary Poppins is not representative), and I think I'm going to be picking up some more material in that vein.
Also, because it's true, I have to say this: Queen Victoria was an asshole.
Also, because it's true, I have to say this: Queen Victoria was an asshole.
June 24, 2019
I hadn’t heard of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh until a friend gave me this book as a present. She turned out to be an absolutely fascinating historical figure. Her life intersected with the struggles for women’s suffrage and for Indian independence, neither of which I knew very much about. Indeed she linked the two by urging campaigners for Indian independence to give Indian women the vote. Sophia’s position in Victorian and 20th century Britain was highly unusual. Her father was the last Maharajah of the Punjab, before Britain took it over when he was a child. Sophia and her siblings were born and brought up in England with great wealth as personal friends of Queen Victoria, yet lacked any power over the land their family had once ruled. Later in life her father became dissatisfied with dependence and idle dissipation, dabbling ineptly in political plotting. Sophia grew up with an extraordinary mixture of privilege and constraint. She and her sisters were formally presented at court and technically considered royalty, yet financially dependent on the whims of the government. No aristocratic white man would consider marrying them. Despite having Queen Victoria as a godmother, she and her family were mere exotic curiosities to Victorian society. The narrative of her life includes a period of trying to fit in with the superficial social whirl, before she became disillusioned and began using her wealth and influence to agitate for social change.
As a suffragette, Sophia refused to pay tax (‘no taxation without representation’), sold suffragette newspapers outside Hampton Court (where she lived), went to court repeatedly for non-payment of taxes and fines, and tried repeatedly to get arrested. She was also present at Black Friday, which I hadn’t previously realised the appalling brutality of. It was a march on the House of Commons, prior to which the police had been told by the Home Secretary Winston Churchill to prevent the marchers from reaching parliament without arresting them. The police took this as permission to use horrific violence, including sexual assault. Many women were severely injured and two died of their wounds. Sophia escaped with only bruises. She used her public profile to bring attention to the suffrage movement and embarrass the government, continuing her staunch support even when tactics turned to violence and arson. Considering the way the suffragettes were treated by the police, I now find it far easier to understand this escalation. Sophia was shy and hated public speaking, yet stood up for what she believed in whenever she could.
Her involvement with the Indian independence movement was limited by her life in England, but she still knew and supported prominent pre-war campaigners for political reform. The accounts of her visits to India give really interesting insight into colonial India. She never lived there, although one of her older sisters settled in Lahore. Throughout her life Sophia’s relationships with her five siblings were deeply important to her, something conveyed very well in this biography. She also loved animals and bred dogs, with a particular fondness for pomeranians. I appreciated the unconventional lives of all three sisters: Sophia never married, Catherine settled in Germany with a female life partner, and Bamba attempted to become a doctor in American before moving to India. The British colonial authorities were so concerned about the destabilising effect the family’s influence could have on the Punjab that for decades they were forbidden from going to India at all. When they did, their activities were closely (and clumsily) monitored by the colonial authorities. During WWI Sophia became a volunteer nurse and fundraiser for Indian troops; during WWII she sheltered evacuees. Delightfully, Anand was able to speak to the evacuees themselves for this book. The detail that Sophia made a little girl promise to always use her vote is very moving.
I learned a great deal about Indian colonialism and the suffragette movement from this well-written and engaging biography. Sophia’s unique life gives a really striking individual perspective on the transformative social upheavals of the early 20th century. Anand also shows her to be a flawed and complex person, with strong family ties and a powerful sense of justice. What a brilliant woman!
As a suffragette, Sophia refused to pay tax (‘no taxation without representation’), sold suffragette newspapers outside Hampton Court (where she lived), went to court repeatedly for non-payment of taxes and fines, and tried repeatedly to get arrested. She was also present at Black Friday, which I hadn’t previously realised the appalling brutality of. It was a march on the House of Commons, prior to which the police had been told by the Home Secretary Winston Churchill to prevent the marchers from reaching parliament without arresting them. The police took this as permission to use horrific violence, including sexual assault. Many women were severely injured and two died of their wounds. Sophia escaped with only bruises. She used her public profile to bring attention to the suffrage movement and embarrass the government, continuing her staunch support even when tactics turned to violence and arson. Considering the way the suffragettes were treated by the police, I now find it far easier to understand this escalation. Sophia was shy and hated public speaking, yet stood up for what she believed in whenever she could.
Her involvement with the Indian independence movement was limited by her life in England, but she still knew and supported prominent pre-war campaigners for political reform. The accounts of her visits to India give really interesting insight into colonial India. She never lived there, although one of her older sisters settled in Lahore. Throughout her life Sophia’s relationships with her five siblings were deeply important to her, something conveyed very well in this biography. She also loved animals and bred dogs, with a particular fondness for pomeranians. I appreciated the unconventional lives of all three sisters: Sophia never married, Catherine settled in Germany with a female life partner, and Bamba attempted to become a doctor in American before moving to India. The British colonial authorities were so concerned about the destabilising effect the family’s influence could have on the Punjab that for decades they were forbidden from going to India at all. When they did, their activities were closely (and clumsily) monitored by the colonial authorities. During WWI Sophia became a volunteer nurse and fundraiser for Indian troops; during WWII she sheltered evacuees. Delightfully, Anand was able to speak to the evacuees themselves for this book. The detail that Sophia made a little girl promise to always use her vote is very moving.
I learned a great deal about Indian colonialism and the suffragette movement from this well-written and engaging biography. Sophia’s unique life gives a really striking individual perspective on the transformative social upheavals of the early 20th century. Anand also shows her to be a flawed and complex person, with strong family ties and a powerful sense of justice. What a brilliant woman!
July 3, 2018
A fascinating biography of a historical figure who, along with her family, deserves to be better known. Sophia Duleep Singh was the daughter of the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire and raised in Britain, with Queen Victoria as her godmother. Her father presented the Koh-I-Noor diamond to the Queen.
Sophia became a prominent British socialite, helping to set trends for cycling, dog breeding and field hockey as pursuits for fashionable young women. After visiting India, however, she developed a strong interest in philanthropy (especially the welfare of Indian soldiers and sailors in the British Empire), Indian nationalism and, after her return to Britain, women's suffrage. Sophia was among the suffragettes who demonstrated on Black Friday in 1910 when hundreds of suffragettes were attacked by police and bystanders.
In addition to Sophia's life story, author Anita Anand also discusses the connections between the campaigns for women's suffrage and Indian independence. Mahatma Gandhi admired the activism of British suffragettes and studied their tactics. Sophia's family also receives extensive attention as her parents and siblings also had interesting lives shaped by British rule over India.
The book is filled with the prominent figures of late 19th and early 20th century Britain. Sophia's brother Victor was a close friend of Lord Carnarvon (who sponsored the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb) and Sophia herself worked closely with the suffragette leader Emmaline Pankhurst. Sophia's social circle also included suffragettes who are little known today but were influential in their times.
One of my favourite royal biographies of the year. Highly recommended.
Sophia became a prominent British socialite, helping to set trends for cycling, dog breeding and field hockey as pursuits for fashionable young women. After visiting India, however, she developed a strong interest in philanthropy (especially the welfare of Indian soldiers and sailors in the British Empire), Indian nationalism and, after her return to Britain, women's suffrage. Sophia was among the suffragettes who demonstrated on Black Friday in 1910 when hundreds of suffragettes were attacked by police and bystanders.
In addition to Sophia's life story, author Anita Anand also discusses the connections between the campaigns for women's suffrage and Indian independence. Mahatma Gandhi admired the activism of British suffragettes and studied their tactics. Sophia's family also receives extensive attention as her parents and siblings also had interesting lives shaped by British rule over India.
The book is filled with the prominent figures of late 19th and early 20th century Britain. Sophia's brother Victor was a close friend of Lord Carnarvon (who sponsored the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb) and Sophia herself worked closely with the suffragette leader Emmaline Pankhurst. Sophia's social circle also included suffragettes who are little known today but were influential in their times.
One of my favourite royal biographies of the year. Highly recommended.
July 15, 2021
This book was fascinating, and I loved reading it.
We learned about the Suffrage movement at school, and also some of the prominent figures that spearheaded the movement and pushed for progress for the advancement of women and their rights, specifically the right to vote.
However, I never learned about Sophia Duleep Singh, a princess born into Indian royalty and god-daughter to Queen Victoria.
Sophia's contributions to the Suffrage movement were extensive, part of Emmeline Pankhurst's inner circle - and she used her elevated status to work towards the cause. I knew literally nothing about the Maharaja Duleep Singh, Sophia and her siblings, and this book was an absorbing biographical insight into their lives.
I also enjoyed the structure of the biography, the narrative, almost novelistic structure to this book made it really interesting to read. The book also covers the topic of Indian Independence and other defining moments of history involving Britain and the Indian subcontinent, including some causes which Sophia herself worked towards supporting.
I really recommend this book - Sophia was truly an inspiration and I really enjoyed reading her story.
We learned about the Suffrage movement at school, and also some of the prominent figures that spearheaded the movement and pushed for progress for the advancement of women and their rights, specifically the right to vote.
However, I never learned about Sophia Duleep Singh, a princess born into Indian royalty and god-daughter to Queen Victoria.
Sophia's contributions to the Suffrage movement were extensive, part of Emmeline Pankhurst's inner circle - and she used her elevated status to work towards the cause. I knew literally nothing about the Maharaja Duleep Singh, Sophia and her siblings, and this book was an absorbing biographical insight into their lives.
I also enjoyed the structure of the biography, the narrative, almost novelistic structure to this book made it really interesting to read. The book also covers the topic of Indian Independence and other defining moments of history involving Britain and the Indian subcontinent, including some causes which Sophia herself worked towards supporting.
I really recommend this book - Sophia was truly an inspiration and I really enjoyed reading her story.
September 30, 2019
Sophia Duleep Singh was the most interesting suffragette I had never heard of before. Sophia is hard to define, but to summarize she was the daughter of the last ruler of the Sikh kingdom and owner of the Koh-I-Noor Diamond, goddaughter of Queen Victoria, raised as an upper-class Englishwoman who never fit in, and finally found her place amidst Indian revolutionaries and English suffragettes. I was sorry for her for most of the book. The English government kept her and her family pretty well suppressed, even preventing trips to India and preventing her from being arrested like her friends when protesting for universal suffrage. I think the whole Duleep Singh family is fascinating and this book Sophia's interesting, sad life was well worth reading.
August 17, 2015
Fascinating look at the life of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh though her early childhood, the British sufragette movement, World War I and the aftermath. I learned a lot about the British Empire as it related to India and the sufragette movement that I did not know before. Would highly recommend!
October 22, 2015
As a book club, we found this book interesting in terms of the facts conveyed in it, but felt that the style somewhat let it down. We learnt much information that we didn't know and were able to have a good discussion on several of the topics that the book covered. However, the book could almost have been divided into works on each topic, rather than trying to connect them all through Sophia, because Sophia's link to the events surrounding her was sometimes minimal. There was often too much information, and too many names to remember, especially of people that do not recur in the story. The research done into Sophia and her family member's lives is excellent, given the amount of covering up that had been done; the author clearly had to do lots of unravelling from the information available. However, it perhaps shows that this is Anand's first book, and it may be that another writer would have told Sophia's story in a more captivating, rather than frustrating, way. We have read three biographies this year, and this was our least favourite, so we would not particularly recommend it to other book clubs.
July 10, 2015
This is the best kind of biography - it's inspiring, riveting, interesting (in that it makes you want to pick up MORE books - did you know Gandhi had taken some of his inspiration from the suffragette movement?) and just heartwarming, to be honest. The writing style is top-notch and makes for very compulsive reading, everything from Sophia's family (wow, her father was a larger-than-life figure for sure) to her pets contribute to who Sophia was as a person and it was wonderful to read about her. I admire her greatly, though she wasn't the most active physically (not for lack of trying), she was a self-made revolutionary in many aspects and that's always something that awes me completely (Jessica Mitford and Lady Constance Lytton are other amazing examples of that). Beautiful book, I'm so happy it got made.
May 11, 2021
I never heard of this family until I found this book. She is an interesting woman for her time. Although having to read a lot of the background of India was tedious and a bit confusing. But that also made me want to read more about the it.
January 13, 2023
Last year for the second MISS DARK'S APPARITIONS book I read two books on British relations with India, one dealing with the Koh-I-Noor diamond and the other with Indians in London. Both of them mentioned Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of the last maharajah of the Punjab who became a firebrand suffragette and supporter of Indian independence. So, I decided to catch her biography on audiobook. I'm glad I did, because it was often fascinating.
Not that the book is one of the best non-fiction books I've read. There seems to be a paucity of material on Sophia's life, partly because the British Empire did everything it could to keep the politically volatile existence of her family (whom they had ruthlessly dispossessed in India) as quiet as possible, and partly because Sophia herself seems to have been a prickly personality who left little record of her own life. Biographies of such ghostly figures can be done well, as Hallie Rubenhold did in THE FIVE, on the lives of the victims of Jack the Ripper. But rather than attempt to reconstruct Sophia's life, Anand takes a different tack, choosing to focus on the people and issues that defined Sophia's life rather than on Sophia herself. The first part of the book reads like a short biography of Sophia's father, and subsequent parts spend so much time talking about the Indian independence and the suffragette movements that for long stretches we lose sight of Sophia altogether, and she begins to feel like a supporting character in her own biography.
In this way, the book might be useful less as the story of a specific person than as a snapshot of the issues of her day. Sophia Duleep Singh faced discrimination both as a woman and as an Indian, saved from penury (and prison and force-feeding) only by the happenstance of having been born Queen Victoria's goddaughter. If you don't know much about early Indian nationalists or the suffragettes (I didn't even know precisely who Emmeline Pankhurst was), this book will be endlessly fascinating.
Basically, the entire book becomes a damning indictment of the British empire. The British took the Punjab and the Koh-I-Noor in an act of highway robbery, ruthlessly exploited the subcontinent for many decades, and massacred peaceful civilians when their grip began to slip. Although many Indians did seem to favour partition, the British policy of partition began as a calculated ploy to set their colonial subjects against each other, so that (like a certain empire still clinging to life today) they could claim that their regime was necessary to prevent internecine warfare. At home, they set on the suffragists with insane violence. En masse, the London police beat and sexually assaulted women in the streets; when the imprisoned women went on hunger strike, protesting that they ought to be categorised as political prisoners, prison wardens and doctors force-fed them, resulting in unimaginable physical and mental trauma. Although I'm discomfited by some of Pankhurst's tactics, I'd be looking for things to burn down too if one of my sisters was killed by police brutality.
The book even contains the single worst thing I've ever heard about Queen Victoria. When Victor, Sophia's eldest brother and therefore the heir to the family legacy as emperors of the Punjab, married an English noblewoman, he tried to take her on a honeymoon to Ceylon to show her, if not his homeland, at least something that resembled it. The pair were stopped setting foot on Indian soil and sent back to London, where Victor's wife Alice was summoned to a personal audience with Queen Victoria - who let them know that the two of them were forbidden ever to produce children. Heck.
Sophia herself ultimately comes across as a tragic, deeply thwarted figure. Watched, spied on, and dictated to all her life, it was only the prospect of meaningful action that extracted her from lifelong battles with depression. Her one lasting accomplishment seems to have been helping to inspire a women's suffrage movement in India. Yet, at every turn she was thwarted, because at no point did her British keepers want her to achieve prominence. She could do very little for India, either during her visits there or at home during the war, because the British feared the power of the Duleep Singh name. As a suffragette, she did her best to get sent to prison but the system which condemned so many women so willingly to so much suffering became suddenly extremely circumspect when dealing with Victoria's goddaughter. Chronically depressed and continually snubbed, Sophia became unpleasant and cranky in later life. Along with her siblings and parents, she lived an unhappy and poisoned life, and one can't help wondering how much happier all of them might have been had they not been the kept pets of an empire.
Not that the book is one of the best non-fiction books I've read. There seems to be a paucity of material on Sophia's life, partly because the British Empire did everything it could to keep the politically volatile existence of her family (whom they had ruthlessly dispossessed in India) as quiet as possible, and partly because Sophia herself seems to have been a prickly personality who left little record of her own life. Biographies of such ghostly figures can be done well, as Hallie Rubenhold did in THE FIVE, on the lives of the victims of Jack the Ripper. But rather than attempt to reconstruct Sophia's life, Anand takes a different tack, choosing to focus on the people and issues that defined Sophia's life rather than on Sophia herself. The first part of the book reads like a short biography of Sophia's father, and subsequent parts spend so much time talking about the Indian independence and the suffragette movements that for long stretches we lose sight of Sophia altogether, and she begins to feel like a supporting character in her own biography.
In this way, the book might be useful less as the story of a specific person than as a snapshot of the issues of her day. Sophia Duleep Singh faced discrimination both as a woman and as an Indian, saved from penury (and prison and force-feeding) only by the happenstance of having been born Queen Victoria's goddaughter. If you don't know much about early Indian nationalists or the suffragettes (I didn't even know precisely who Emmeline Pankhurst was), this book will be endlessly fascinating.
Basically, the entire book becomes a damning indictment of the British empire. The British took the Punjab and the Koh-I-Noor in an act of highway robbery, ruthlessly exploited the subcontinent for many decades, and massacred peaceful civilians when their grip began to slip. Although many Indians did seem to favour partition, the British policy of partition began as a calculated ploy to set their colonial subjects against each other, so that (like a certain empire still clinging to life today) they could claim that their regime was necessary to prevent internecine warfare. At home, they set on the suffragists with insane violence. En masse, the London police beat and sexually assaulted women in the streets; when the imprisoned women went on hunger strike, protesting that they ought to be categorised as political prisoners, prison wardens and doctors force-fed them, resulting in unimaginable physical and mental trauma. Although I'm discomfited by some of Pankhurst's tactics, I'd be looking for things to burn down too if one of my sisters was killed by police brutality.
The book even contains the single worst thing I've ever heard about Queen Victoria. When Victor, Sophia's eldest brother and therefore the heir to the family legacy as emperors of the Punjab, married an English noblewoman, he tried to take her on a honeymoon to Ceylon to show her, if not his homeland, at least something that resembled it. The pair were stopped setting foot on Indian soil and sent back to London, where Victor's wife Alice was summoned to a personal audience with Queen Victoria - who let them know that the two of them were forbidden ever to produce children. Heck.
Sophia herself ultimately comes across as a tragic, deeply thwarted figure. Watched, spied on, and dictated to all her life, it was only the prospect of meaningful action that extracted her from lifelong battles with depression. Her one lasting accomplishment seems to have been helping to inspire a women's suffrage movement in India. Yet, at every turn she was thwarted, because at no point did her British keepers want her to achieve prominence. She could do very little for India, either during her visits there or at home during the war, because the British feared the power of the Duleep Singh name. As a suffragette, she did her best to get sent to prison but the system which condemned so many women so willingly to so much suffering became suddenly extremely circumspect when dealing with Victoria's goddaughter. Chronically depressed and continually snubbed, Sophia became unpleasant and cranky in later life. Along with her siblings and parents, she lived an unhappy and poisoned life, and one can't help wondering how much happier all of them might have been had they not been the kept pets of an empire.
May 10, 2021
Whenever I go to vote, I cry. The thought of the women who came before me and fought for what I have now, moves me to tears. Reading the legacy of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh and her place in the fight, brought it all the more close to my heart.
This book is a masterpiece and a master record of one of the most influential figures in history and her family. As someone very interested not only in history and women’s history but India and their history this book could have been made in a lab for me.
The story of Princess Sophia was so shocking and so wonderful the whole thing reads like fiction and carries through quickly right up through the end. By the time the book concludes you feel as if you’ve learned everything there is to know about the Princess, and I was left feeling deeply close to her.
When I closed this book, I cried. In gratitude for women like Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, and I know she’ll be on my heart for a long time.
This book is a masterpiece and a master record of one of the most influential figures in history and her family. As someone very interested not only in history and women’s history but India and their history this book could have been made in a lab for me.
The story of Princess Sophia was so shocking and so wonderful the whole thing reads like fiction and carries through quickly right up through the end. By the time the book concludes you feel as if you’ve learned everything there is to know about the Princess, and I was left feeling deeply close to her.
When I closed this book, I cried. In gratitude for women like Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, and I know she’ll be on my heart for a long time.
June 19, 2023
This is an interesting history of both the British in India and women's fight for the vote, and all the oppression that went with them. Princess Sophia Duleep Singh and her ancestors provide an excellent lens through which to view those histories.
The description of Sophia's early life is rather overloaded with clothes and jewellery, for my taste, but I found her political awakening and involvement with the suffragette movement fascinating. Ditto the stories of the brutal colonial regime in India and the 2nd Boer War in South Africa. Curzon, Kitchener, Dyer - we British should be truly ashamed.
The description of Sophia's early life is rather overloaded with clothes and jewellery, for my taste, but I found her political awakening and involvement with the suffragette movement fascinating. Ditto the stories of the brutal colonial regime in India and the 2nd Boer War in South Africa. Curzon, Kitchener, Dyer - we British should be truly ashamed.
January 10, 2025
A strong start to my reading this year. The Suffs musical inspired me to read more about suffragettes/ists, and Sophia's biography did not disappoint. Anand, with vivid style, expertly weaved the Princess' personal story and developing political radicalism with that of the Punjab and the suffragist movement.
Both Sophia and Anita Anand's message to the young women in the family at their conclusions (of life and in the book) genuinely moved me: women fought and died for our rights. We cannot forget how far we have come.
Both Sophia and Anita Anand's message to the young women in the family at their conclusions (of life and in the book) genuinely moved me: women fought and died for our rights. We cannot forget how far we have come.
May 18, 2023
Another in a long series of “how much I don’t know” books! Sophia Dupleep Singh represents the last of a line of rulers in the Punjab of India (parts are now in Pakistan). This book is more a vast history than a biography. We learn about everyone from Sophia’s grandfather to the suffragette family of Emily Pankhurst, including some backstory of Mahatma Gandhi! If you wanted just Sophia, this isn’t your book. But I enjoyed the broad brush of history across the British empire while glimpsing the intimate world of royalty and Raj. I did wish the author had tried to understand Sophia more, rather than just place her in major events. But that would have been a different book.
October 13, 2021
I nearly gave this 4 stars but changed it to 5 towards the end of the book. The story was well written and kept me interested. Highly recommend it
September 20, 2022
I came across this book by accident and devoured it. A slice of history - especially women's history, but also Indian history - that I've never known before. The author does an amazing job presenting both Sophia's character, and the history surrounding her, in its whole complexity.
February 9, 2021
Fascinating account of the goddaughter of Queen Victoria who was taken from India due to the ruthless British imperialism that ruled the country; someone we may never have learnt about if it wasn’t for Anita Anand , who triumphantly brings her story back into public view. A woman culturally displaced who all her life searched for meaning and a purpose. You also learn a lot about British imperialism and how India was shockingly torn apart and mistreated by the British. There’s also lots of context about the suffragette movement and how they influenced Ghandi. Very interesting read if you’re interested in some of these topics.
May 19, 2022
This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. Anand has the rare gift of a writing style that can bring history to life so you are left surrounded by the ghosts of the people she is painting for you. The canvas that the book covers is so vast, it takes courage to take them all on - people write multi-volume tomes on each of them, from British imperialism, to the British royal family, to the Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his son Duleep Singh, the history of the Punjab and Sikhism, the suffragette movement, the Indian independence movement, the Partition, the World Wars. But Anand’s focus on one woman who lived through these events and played a significant role in so many of them works wondrously well, so that by the end you feel endeared to her like someone you knew personally. Sophia Duleep Singh’s life deserved this magnificent ode, no doubt, and the book does its job in recreating her world, her experiences, thoughts, passions, emotional investments, her unique story. I finished reading this book an hour ago but I know that the ghosts of Sophia, her siblings, the suffragettes she fought alongside, the people of the Punjab who adored her, will all swirl around me in their ghostly forms for days to come. It is the only piece of historical non-fiction I believe I will reread many, many times in the future.
January 1, 2023
This was a really lovely book and I'm happy it's my last of the year. Sophia was a fascinating person with a challenging life that provided her with many interesting opportunities and also much heartache. If you have an interest in any of the following, you should check it out: Indian history, Raj history, the Punjab, Victorian England, Victoria's relationships with her imperial wards, the suffragette movement, Indian involvement in WWI, cross cultural relationships in the 19th & 20th century (including between women), the life of women in the Victorian and Edwardian, experiences of outsiders, the lives of deposed maharajas, imperial politics, the early independence movement in India, the Ghadar movement, and more.
Really well written. This is also covered in an episode of the Empire podcast hosted by the author and another favorite of mine, William Dalrymple. The podcast is great and highly recommended. However, the book is so much better because you really get to know all about Sophia and her family and get many more details. I loved learning about Sophia and her family and her relationships with her animals (especially Joe!) also really touched me. The writing was very moving and I was brought to tears multiple times.
Anand has also written The Patient Assassin, which is also highly recommended.
Really well written. This is also covered in an episode of the Empire podcast hosted by the author and another favorite of mine, William Dalrymple. The podcast is great and highly recommended. However, the book is so much better because you really get to know all about Sophia and her family and get many more details. I loved learning about Sophia and her family and her relationships with her animals (especially Joe!) also really touched me. The writing was very moving and I was brought to tears multiple times.
Anand has also written The Patient Assassin, which is also highly recommended.
March 29, 2015
This is an exceptional book highlighting parts of British social, political and economic history through the life of Sophia Duleep Singh.
As a keen student of Indian history, I have always been appalled by much British conduct towards India and Indians. The treatment meted out to the descendants of Duleep Singh was particularly obnoxious. Initially Sophia was well received but was never viewed as being "one of us"to be able to marry, or have children here, a country which she viewed as home. As a result, she threw herself into a number of causes, plainly looking for the fulfilment denied her in her personal life.
Miss Anand writes extremely well. Whilst it is clear that she respects and admires her subject, her writing does not appear to me to be sycophantic; certainly, Sophia is not presented as a paragon of virtue but as committed, caring but sometimes a little eccentric and irascible individual seeking a role in life in a country determined to deny her one.
My only quibble is Miss Anand's use of "enormity" when she means magnitude. They are not synonyms!
A candidate for my book of the year.
As a keen student of Indian history, I have always been appalled by much British conduct towards India and Indians. The treatment meted out to the descendants of Duleep Singh was particularly obnoxious. Initially Sophia was well received but was never viewed as being "one of us"to be able to marry, or have children here, a country which she viewed as home. As a result, she threw herself into a number of causes, plainly looking for the fulfilment denied her in her personal life.
Miss Anand writes extremely well. Whilst it is clear that she respects and admires her subject, her writing does not appear to me to be sycophantic; certainly, Sophia is not presented as a paragon of virtue but as committed, caring but sometimes a little eccentric and irascible individual seeking a role in life in a country determined to deny her one.
My only quibble is Miss Anand's use of "enormity" when she means magnitude. They are not synonyms!
A candidate for my book of the year.
January 27, 2016
A wonderfully written story about Sophia Duleep Singh, starting with her grandfather, a legendary early-19-century Sikh maharajah of the Punjab region of India. The story starts there and continues with internal family troubles and the British takeover of the kingdom from Sophia's preteen father, which is relevant considering how those events affect Sophia's upbrining and the way others--both British and from her family's former kingdom--treat her. It's also very well told, as is the rest of the story of Sophia's childhood, family relationships, her busy but mostly unfulfilling early adulthood, and the changes that world travel and meeting people spark in her life.
She's even more than the title implies--a loving if sometimes exasperated sibling, a champion dog breeder, a fashion plate, and a woman open to learning from people and situations, and changing--and not afraid to use her influence and intelligence to change the world.
Highly recommended for fascinating stories, compelling writing, and a window deeply into one of the families affected by the British Raj as well as women affected by and affecting a rapidly changing world.
She's even more than the title implies--a loving if sometimes exasperated sibling, a champion dog breeder, a fashion plate, and a woman open to learning from people and situations, and changing--and not afraid to use her influence and intelligence to change the world.
Highly recommended for fascinating stories, compelling writing, and a window deeply into one of the families affected by the British Raj as well as women affected by and affecting a rapidly changing world.
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