The Rose of Tibet - Softcover

Davidson, Lionel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 057124291X ISBN 13: 9780571242917

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2011

Synopsis

Hugh Whittington has gone missing - reported dead while filming near Mount Everest. Determined to find him, his brother Charles embarks on a perilous and illegal journey from India into the forbidden land of Tibet, all the way to the monastery of Yamdring. There awaits a woman with a deadly and ghostly secret, an emerald treasure to guard and the invading Chinese Red Army. The Rose of Tibet (1962) is Lionel Davidson's second novel. His extraordinary and thrilling tale of a haunted land is among the very finest of its kind and prompted Graham Greene to remark: 'I hadn't realised how much I had missed the genuine adventure story until I read The Rose of Tibet.' Its combination of adventure and travelogue is further proof of Davidson's great variety as a writer, and caused Daphne du Maurier to say: 'It has all the excitement of King Solomon's Mines.'

About this title

Review:

Thrilling ... a perilous journey across Tibet in search of a missing brother. (Jake Kerridge Telegraph)

This tale of a quest for treasure from India to Tibet should ... have been a Harrison Ford film. (Christopher Fowler Independent)

Like all accounts of wild and dangerous encounters with extreme cold, pain and fear, it intensifies the comfort and cosiness of an armchair in a warm, softly-lit room in a peaceful and ordered land ... An astonishing work of imagination. (Peter Hitchens)

Is Lionel Davidson today's Rider Haggard? His novel has all the excitement of She and King Solomon's Mines. (Daphne du Maurier)

A first-class piece of storytelling, well-plotted, convincing, suspenseful. (Sunday Telegraph)

[W]ritten with elegance, intelligence and wit ... The Rose of Tibet, if it is to be classified, is an adventure thriller, peppered with history, religion and politics. Its hero, Charles Houston, a failed artist bored with being an art teacher, sets out to find his brother Hugh, last heard of travelling with a film crew in Tibet. It is late 1949, shortly before communist China's invasion of the Buddhist state ... Most of the book's riveting atmospheric action is filled by Houston's slow and troubled journey over the mountains to Yamdring, a town teeming with priestesses and monasteries, at one of which his brother was rumoured to be. He's constantly beset by illness, a propensity to drink, injury, exhaustion, terrible weather, inadequate maps, an unreliable horse and the young Ringling, an inexperienced local guide and translator ... His flight back to civilisation is as fraught as was his journey to Yamdring - and just as gripping ... Faber's reissue of Lionel Davidson's novels, which started last year with Kolymsky Heights, is very welcome. (Marcel Berlins The Times)

[A]nother fine example of Lionel Davidson's narrative mastery and a must-read. (Daily Express)

[A]s compelling as it was 50 years ago ... The Rose of Tibet has lost none of its charm over the years and Davidson's depiction of Himalayas is one of the finest you'll ever encounter. (Upcoming4.me)

Superb ... an account of human endurance pushed to (even beyond) its limits, interspersed with a heart-rending love story and more than a dash of mystifying mysticism and some fascinating facts about Tibet and the Chinese invasion. (Shiny New Books)

Book Description:

From the bestselling author of Kolymsky Heights.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 057124291X
• ISBN 13: 9780571242917
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 316