Reprinted many times, this classic, of Agnes Keith's observations and reflections of the time, is a true-to-life record of society and culture then and of the captivating natural beauty of Sabah. Today, Sabah continues to be known as the "land below the wind", a phrase used by seafarers in the past to describe all the lands south of the typhoon belt, but which Agnes effectively reserved for Sabah through her book. One of few written accounts of contemporary life in Borneo in the 1930s, this book is an invaluable record of a world gone by.

    "She writes with spontaneous, confident zeal."--New York Times "It is her masterpiece."--Patricia Hampl

    The book also offered glimpses of what had gone before, and eventually, after her husband's death, Lady Fortescue wrote the story of her whole life - and in particular of her meeting and marriage with Sir John Fortescue. This is that nostalgic re-creation of another era, of her excitement as an actress before World War I, of her meeting with the man she was to marry, and of their first home together in Windsor Castle during the reign of King George V and Queen Mary.

    She was catapulted into the "literary hall of fame" in 1924 when her book So Big was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

    L. Coombes, to the front rank of proletarian writers. Coombes was born in England, but he lived for decades in the Vale of Neath in south Wales, and as the economic problems of the 1930s deepened, he turned to writing as a way to spread the word about the plight of miners and their communities to a wider world. Presenting the daily lives of miners in documentary fashion, with special attention to the damaging lockouts of 1921 and 1926, These Poor Hands retains the power to astonish readers with its description of the ways that unfettered capitalism can lay waste to human potential.