Works of fiction/history?

[colin henshaw]

I recently bought a copy of a biography (non-fiction) of Sir Stamford Raffles which has a fair bit of information on local culture etc. Some of the Malaysian and Indonesian artefacts he collected are in the British Museum. The book is "Raffles and the Golden Opportunity" by Victoria Glendinning 2012.

[Rick]

That one sounds interesting, Colin.
You can get Raffles' History of Java free as a kindle download, but it is unreadable unfortunately.

[S.Workman]

Originally Posted by Rick

That one sounds interesting, Colin.
You can get Raffles' History of Java free as a kindle download, but it is unreadable unfortunately.

Unreadable as in formatted badly or unreadable as in soporific to the modern reader?

[Bob A]

If you enjoy historical fiction, George MacDonald Fraser fills the bill. His Flashman series of novels includes one, Flashman's Lady, which features our antihero, who chases pirates in 1841 in the company of James Brooke, later Rajah of Sarawak.

The whole series is a pleasant, amusing, raffish and informative read. Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Flashman

[S.Workman]

Originally Posted by Bob A

If you enjoy historical fiction, George MacDonald Fraser fills the bill. His Flashman series of novels includes one, Flashman's Lady, which features our antihero, who chases pirates in 1841 in the company of James Brooke, later Rajah of Sarawak.

The whole series is a pleasant, amusing, raffish and informative read. Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Flashman

I've read them all, they are really hilarious. Flash is just the worst.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by S.Workman

Unreadable as in formatted badly or unreadable as in soporific to the modern reader?

Unreadable as in garbled, missing words, paragraphs etc.
Not to mention in physical book size; our member Naga Sasra had an old copy that was two very thick volumes.

[Seerp Visser]

Originally Posted by Rick

That one sounds interesting, Colin.
You can get Raffles' History of Java free as a kindle download, but it is unreadable unfortunately.

Look for "History of Java" at archive.org, they offer a number of copies from different editons, free to read and download.
Special the first edition of 1817 is of very good quality with beautiful drawings.

[A. G. Maisey]

I have an Oxford in Asia reprint, two vols., cased, 1978

It does contain a lot of statistics on commerce, production, trade, but it also contains a lot of very interesting information. Even though it was written in the first quarter of the 19th century, it is easy, maybe very easy to read. The style is not at all academic, and print size is such that if you speed read it is very easy to scan. I have seen this reprint come up for sale from time to time, it is expensive, but not prohibitive.