A BRILLIANT NOVELIST.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 619, 23 September 1909, Page 3

A BRILLIANT NOVELIST.

' -.Mrs; Flora' Annie Jteel- is,- as' Mr. ; Balfour once said, the only.Englishwoman who 'knows' anything.about the reaf India.-ior is thfs It all surprising when it is remembered that tho first thirty years'.of- her -hfe'-were spent there many of .them, .as of Government schools in the Punjab. Mrs. Steel became arVauthor in a rather peculiar:way.' She took to , writing .first to .help a very hard-worked editor or an Indian newspaper. during the verv deadly hot he was constantly down with fever. At that time she was onlv twenty-seven, - but jt f reaueritly happened that a whole issue-leaders and: afl-came from her pen. It may not be. generally known.that her first .success was-not in. the realms of fiction' but a domestic piece of work ciSed "The Com' piece-Cook and • which in India has become a standard treatise.- ; By no means a quick worker in the ordinary sense, Mrs. Steel, has a passion for accuracy. She studies her plpts for months, sometimes years, and is most particular when writing not to makb any erasures or corrections. "On tho Face of the Wa tors," for instance, was thoueht over .for..years before Mrs.- Steel penned i word of it.-To get local colour she lived alone for weeks m the-Mussulman quarter of a small Punjab town.' She had no servant, and did allher own work; sleeping nt night, as is 'tho custom, on the roof in the starlight. Then she went to Delhi. There asain sho studied every incident.of the story, taking photographs , of; every placo,-and .thus' gcttm K the colouring of the book: as possible. After her return to England she spent nine months in the India Office studyine oil the papers and manuscripts in connection w.ith tho Indian Mutiny. ■■-.■■■ >