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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Paul Scott
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(1920–78) Novelist who tragically died of cancer just as he was about to reach a wide and devoted following. The formative experience of his life was his service as a soldier in India during World War II. Nearly all his novels (from Johnny Sahib in 1952) were set in the subcontinent, to which he returned for several visits after 1964. The result was his great work, the four novels about the final years of the *Raj in the 1940s (The Jewel in the Crown 1966, The Day of the Scorpion 1968, The Towers of Silence 1971, A Division of the Spoils 1975); in 1976 they were published together under the combined title The Raj Quartet.
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Scott followed this with a short novel, Staying On (1977), about an old married couple remaining in India after independence. This won the Booker prize in 1977 and was filmed for television by Granada in 1980, with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. It was followed in 1983 by Granada's triumphantly successful 13-part version of the quartet under the title *Jewel in the Crown.
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