Stories by Sir Hugh Clifford (Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints)

Sir Hugh Clifford was a British colonial official and governor, especially associated with Malaya, and a novelist and essayist.

Arriving in Malaya in 1883, at the age of 17, not 10 years after the British takeover of the western peninsular states, Clifford became a cadet in Perak, and began a close association of more than 20 years with the Malay people and their lives. Like all district administrators of the time, he learned the language and spent long periods living in remote parts of the country.

Those experiences, most particularly in the state of Pahang, where he was sole British representative for two years from 1887, gave Clifford a romantic taste for the exotic that became the subject of his many essays, stories, and novels published from 1896, when more senior posts—as resident of Pahang from 1896 to 1903, with a brief interval as governor of North Borneo and Labuan—made it impossible to mingle as he had with all levels of Malay society.

 Good condition first edition hardcover book with a tear dust jacket with loss and heavy scuffing. The book board and spine have kept well with only light shelf wear.