The Last Englishmen: Love, War, and the End of Empire
Deborah Baker
Aug 2018 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by James Cameron Stewart
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14 hr 7 min
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John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the North Face of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers—W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender—achieved literary fame, they vied to be included on an expedition that would deliver Everest's summit to an Englishman, a quest that had become a metaphor for Britain's struggle to maintain power over India. To this rivalry was added another: In the summer of 1938 both men fell in love with a painter named Nancy Sharp. Her choice would determine where each man's wartime loyalties would lie.
Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and Communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them is a highborn Bengali poet named Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature, whose life would be upended by the arrival of war on his Calcutta doorstep.
Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and Communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them is a highborn Bengali poet named Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature, whose life would be upended by the arrival of war on his Calcutta doorstep.
John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas. Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the North Face of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers—W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender—achieved literary fame, they vied to be included on an expedition that would deliver Everes...
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About the author
Deborah Baker is the author of Making a Farm; In Extremis, which was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography; A Blue Hand; and The Convert, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in India and New York.
Trained at Hull University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, James Cameron Stewart is a veteran actor whose performances include roles in theater, film, and television. His credits include Outlander, Jericho, Flying Blind, Golden Years, Emmerdale, London's Burning, Eastenders, Coronation Street, and Holby City.
Deborah Baker is the author of Making a Farm; In Extremis, which was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography; A Blue Hand; and The Convert, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in India and New York.
Trained at Hull University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Schoo...
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