Nine Faces Of Kenya

Elspeth Huxley was born in 1907 and first went to Africa in 1913. The story of her childhood years, memorably dramatized for television by John Hawkesworth in 1982, was told in The Flame Trees of Thika (1959) and its sequel, The Mottled Lizard (1962). She returned to England in 1925 and studied agriculture at Reading University and Cornell. She married Gervas Huxley in 1931 and during the thirties travelled widely with him in Africa, America, Australia and elsewhere. Among the many novels, biographies, travel books and memoirs that she has written are several about East Africa, including White Man's Country (1935), Red Strangers (1939), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1948), Forks and Hope (1964), Nellie: Letters from Africa (1981) and Last Days in Eden (1984). In 1962 she was awarded the CBE. Elspeth Huxley has one son and three grandsons and lives in Wiltshire.

In this marvelous anthology, Elspeth Huxley, our best and most popular writer on Africa, has drawn on her unparalleled knowledge of Kenya and its literature to present a fully rounded portrait of one of the most fascinating countries in the world. In nine sections focusing on exploration, travel, settlement, war, hunting, wildlife, environment, life-styles, and legend and poetry, using only first-hand accounts, she guides the reader through the story of Kenya from AD100 to the present with her characteristic candour and directness.

Red Strangers

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New edition in Modern Classics of Elspeth Huxley's stirring account of her childhood in Kenya and her novel of the destructive forces of colonization

Elspeth Huxley (1907-1997) was the daughter of Major Josceline Grant of Njoro, Kenya where she spent most of her childhood.  She was educated at the European School in Nairobi and at Reading University where she took a diploma in agriculture, and atCornell University.  In 1929 she joined the Empire Marketing Board as a press officer and, following her marriage to Gervase Huxley in 1931, travelled widely with him in America, Africa and elsewhere.

Growing up in Kenya in the early twentieth century, the brothers Matu and Muthegi are raised according to customs that, they are told, have existed since the beginning of the world. But when the 'red' strangers come, sunburned Europeans who seek to colonize their homeland, the lives of the two Kikuyu tribesmen begin to change in dramatic new ways. Soon, their people are overwhelmed by unknown diseases that traditional magic seems powerless to control. And as the strangers move across the land, the tribe rapidly finds itself forced to obey foreign laws that seem at best bizarre, and that at worst entirely contradict the Kikuyu's own ancient ways, rituals and beliefs.

Out In The Midday Sun

Africa between the two world wars - the people, the landscape, the rom ance and the harsh realities.

Elspeth Huxley captivated readers throughout the world with her 'memories of an African childhood' in THE FLAME TREES OF THIKA and THE MOTTLED LIZARD. In this final volume of her trilogy she tells the story of her adult life in Africa, in which the vigorously evoked personalities - from the pioneer Lord Delamere and Baroness Blixen to Jomo Kenyatta - blend with her supurb description of the social, cultural and political upheavals of the time. 'An accomplished story-teller, she weaves anecdotes, character sketches, political history together without losing her thread or the readers momentum. ' SUNDAY TIMES 'She evokes it all lovingly but astringently, especially the glittering, often scandelous life of the young aristocrats who lived in Happy Valley. ' DAILY EXPRESS

The Mottled Lizard

'An accomplished story-teller, she weaves ancdotes, character sketches, political history together without losing her thread or the reader's momentum. ' Sunday Times

She knows East Africa and she loves it - the people, black and white, and the wild beauy of its countryside - with a critical and understanding sympathy

Elspeth Huxley was born in 1906, the daughter of Major Josceline Grant of Njoro, Kenya, where she spent most of her childhood. She was educated at the European School in Nairobi and at Reading University where she took a diploma in agriculture, and at Cornell University, USA. In 1929 she joined the Empire Marketing Board as a press officer. She married Gervas Huxley in 1931 and travelled widely with him in America, Africa and elsewhere. She was on the BBC General Advisory Council from 1952 to 1959, when she joined the Monckton Advisory Commision on Central Africa. She wrote novels, detective fiction, biography and travel titles, and her books include The Flame Trees of Thika (1959), The Challenge of Africa (1971), Livingstone and His African Journeys (1974), Florence Nightingale (1975), Scott of the Antarctic (1977), Nellie: Letter from Africa (1980), Whipsnade: Captive Breeding for Survival (1981), The Prince Buys the Manor (1982), Last Days in Eden (1985, with Hugo van Lawick) and Out in the Midday Sun: My Kenya (1985). She died in 1997.

In this sequel to The Flame of Thika, Elspeth Huxley takes up her story after the family returns to Kenya after the First World War. Her family and friends, their home and their travels, the glorious wildlife and scenery, described in rich and loving detail, all spring to life in this enchanting book. 'She knows East Africa and she loves it. . . with a critical and understanding sympathy. ' The Times 'What a marvellous writer. . . and what a Kenya it was. ' Financial Times

Elspeth Huxley

Memories of an African Childhood

When Elspeth Huxley’s pioneer father buys a remote plot of land in Kenya, the family sets off to discover their new home: five hundred acres of Kenyan scrubland, infested with ticks and white ants, and quavering with heat. What they lack in know-how they make up for in determination: building a grass house, employing local Kikuyu tribe members and painstakingly transforming their patch of wilderness into a working farm. Huxley’s unforgettable childhood memoir is a sensitive account of settler life at the turn of the twentieth century and a love song to the harshness and beauty of East Africa.

Elspeth Huxley

The Flame Trees Of Thika

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