Paul Scott, The Towers of Silence

Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1971

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

The Towers of Silence

(1971) is the third novel in Scott's

The Raj Quartet

, following on from

The Jewel in the Crown

and

The Day of the Scorpion

. The novel, arranged into five parts, is principally the story of an elderly woman called Miss Batchelor, and Scott's early title for the book had been “The Apotheosis of Barbara Batchelor” (with regard to her name, Scott, though obviously also suggesting her spinsterhood, probably took the garrulous Barbie's surname from the hindi for talk,

batchit

). It begins with a review of Barbie's life in India and opens with the information that in September 1939, which was of course the month the Second World War began for the British, she retired as superintendent of the Protestant Mission schools in Ranpur, a city that featured heavily in

The

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1663 words

Citation: Childs, Peter. "The Towers of Silence". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7953, accessed 24 April 2024.]

Save this article