3 Review(s)

King Karna is fried every morning to provide a fakir?s breakfast, but finds that there is a more generous ruler than he; Raja Rasalu becomes a jogi just for a glimpse of the fair Queen Sundaran; a rat thinks he drives a good bargain, but is astonished when his bargaining brings him a bride; and a bulbul pines for green chilies from the garden of a Jinn. These folktales and many others from all over North India were collected by Flora Annie Steel in the nineteenth century. Today, they are an invaluable snapshot of a bygone era; they evoke the timeless India of myth and legend, peopled with talking animals, powerful fakirs and heroic kings, where anything can happen and usually does. Charmingly illustrated by John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling, and complete with original verses in Hindi and Punjabi, Shehzadi Mircha: Folktales from the Punjab is a delightful book for adults and young readers alike. About the Author Flora Annie Steel (1847?1929) was an English writer who was fascinated by Indian culture and spent twenty-two years in British India, writing extensively about the stories she heard and her own experiences in the country as the outspoken and critical wife of an engineer in the Indian Civil Service. Steel was described as ?the female Rudyard Kipling? and was noted especially for books set in India for both adults and children, particularly a book on housekeeping in India for Englishwomen, The Adventures of Akbar and Tales of the Punjab, as well as novels and short stories.