Siamese White Maurice Collis 9780571240869 Books
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Foremost among the biographies that Maurice Collis wrote during his wide-ranging literary career is Siamese White - an account of the career of Samuel White of Bath who, during the reign of James II, was appointed by the King of Siam as a mandarin of that country. The book superbly embodies that old adage - truth is stranger than fiction. 'A magnificent story, full of interest and excitement, but there is more to it than that. Collis, who has lived for years on the scene of these high happenings, is able to give us a first-hand picture of a fascinating land of a lovely archipelago, of rivers and rapids, of an immemorial track through jungles haunted by tigers and malaria.' Evening Standard
Siamese White Maurice Collis 9780571240869 Books
A marvellous account of nefarious goings-on on the fringes of the East Inda Company's domains in the seventeenth century, when that part of the world was the Wild East, and Siam was ruled de facto by a renegade Greek.Product details
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Siamese White Maurice Collis 9780571240869 Books Reviews
There was a time when a scholar would spend years researching a historical figure and further years composing a biography of that figure, and publishers would buy the manuscript and publish the book without expecting much in the way of profit, happy to bask in the reflected glow of the respect which the public had for scholarship. Those days are gone. Today, unless the author is a Nobel Prize laureate or the subject was the mistress of an American president, the only people publishing historical biographies are university presses or the scholars themselves.
There was also a time when a Westerner could come to Asia and parlay his wits and his courage into an empire. Most people who've spent any time at all in Thailand have already heard the stories about Constant Phaulkon, who, before he was drawn and quartered on the steps of the palace, was second in command to King Narai of Ayudhaya. A few have heard about the success enjoyed by Louis Leonowens, whose mother Anna was the "I" of "The King and I."
But equally romantic, and yet less well-known, is the story of Samuel White, who came to Siam from Madras in the employ of the East India Company in 1677. In the following 11 years he won and lost several fortunes, helped put down a bloody rebellion, turned down the job of Prime Minister of Ayudhaya, accepted the post of Sultan of Mergui (just up the coast from Phuket), led a fleet of privateers against the Kingdom of Galconda under the flag of the King of Siam, survived the massacre of 60 British civilians at Mergui, was accused of theft, murder and treason by the East India Company, escaped from prison, and in 1689 made his way back to England where he sued the East India Company for 40,000 pounds sterling before the House of Commons. Unfortunately, that was an extremely bitter winter in England, and after 12 years in the tropics a bout of malaria combined with the north wind to end the life of Samuel White. He was 39 years old.
As presented in "Siamese White" by Maurice Collis (Latimer, Trend & Co., Plymouth, 1951) this story of blood and money has unfortunately been almost drained of any life by the dry prose of the academic. What might have been exciting scenes usually end in a digression, with the next chapter beginning with the words, "I now return to the main narrative..."
Also, some of Mr. Collis' scholarship is understandably removed from reality, coming as it did from research conducted in ancient books and manuscripts written not by scholars, but by sailors or adventurers. For instance, he refers to the island of Junkceylon (as Phuket was known two hundred years ago) as the southernmost island in the Mergui archipelago.
Maybe books like "Siamese White" are part of the reason why pure scholarship is no longer bought by commercial publishers. Constant Phaulkon, White's sometime partner and sometime antagonist, has had a pair of rip-roaring adventure novels written about him, novels that have been examined by Hollywood executives for movie treatments. While Samuel White's life would make an extremely good movie, it is doubtful this book would ever be the source material for the script.
Good book
A wonderful tale of the 18th c. Romantic mysterious orient
A marvellous account of nefarious goings-on on the fringes of the East Inda Company's domains in the seventeenth century, when that part of the world was the Wild East, and Siam was ruled de facto by a renegade Greek.
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