Maurice Collis
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Maurice Stewart Collis | |
|---|---|
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| Magistrate of Rangoon | |
| In office 1929–1930 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 10 January 1889 Administrator |
Maurice Stewart Collis (10 January 1889 – 12 January 1973) was an administrator in
Burma (Myanmar) when it was part of the British Empire, and afterwards a writer on Southeast Asia, China
and other historical subjects.
Life
He was born in
Pegu Division
. After giving judgement in the last of these trials Collis was hastily moved to the post of Excise Commissioner. After returning to England in 1934, he wrote many books, including Siamese White and Foreign Mud, as well as art and literary criticism. At the age of 65 he turned his hand to painting.
His younger brothers were the writer John Stewart Collis and Robert Collis, a notable doctor and author;[1] John and Robert were twins.
Works
Autobiographies
- Trials in Burma (1930-31), Faber & Faber, 1938
- The Journey Outward (1911-18), Faber & Faber, 1952
- Into Hidden Burma (1919-34), Faber & Faber, 1953
- The Journey Up: Reminiscences 1934-1968, Faber & Faber, 1970
Biographies
- Siamese White (about Samuel White and the Anglo-Siamese War of 1687), Faber & Faber, 1936; revised 1951
- The Grand Peregrination - Being the Life and Adventures of Fernão Mendes Pinto, Faber & Faber, London, 1949
- Marco Polo, Faber & Faber, 1950
- Spanish conquest of Mexico), Faber & Faber, 1954
- Nancy Astor: An Informal Biography, Faber & Faber, 1960
- Raffles (Faber, London, 1966; about Stamford Raffles), Faber & Faber, 1966
- Somerville and Ross: A Biography (about Edith Somerville and Violet Martin/"Martin Ross"), Faber & Faber, 1968
- Stanley Spencer: A Biography (about the painter Stanley Spencer), Harvill Press, 1962
Histories
- The Great Within (Peking and the Forbidden City), Faber & Faber, 1941
- British Merchant Adventurers (from the "Britain in Pictures" series), William Collins, 1942
- The Land of the Great Image: Being Experiences of Friar Manrique in Arakan, Faber & Faber, 1943; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. Translated into Portuguese in 1944 (Na terra da Grande Imagem. Livraria Civilização. Porto).
- Foreign Mud: Being an Account of the Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830s and the Anglo-Chinese War That Followed, Faber & Faber, 1946
- The First Holy One (about Confucius and his philosophy), Faber & Faber, 1948
- Last and First in Burma (1941-48), Faber & Faber, 1956
- The Hurling Time (England during the Fourteenth Century), Faber & Faber, 1958
- Wayfoong: The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Faber & Faber, 1965
Fiction
- She Was a Queen, Faber & Faber, 1937
- Sanda Mala, Carrick & Evans, 1940
- The Dark Door, Faber & Faber, 1940
- Quest for Sita, Faber & Faber, 1946
- The Descent of the God, Faber & Faber, 1948
- The Mystery of Dead Lovers (with drawings by Cawthra Mulock), Faber & Faber, 1951
Drama
- The Motherly and Auspicious: Being the Life of the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsiin the Form of a Drama, with an Introduction and Notes, Faber & Faber, 1943
- White of Mergen (illustrated by Feliks Topolski), Faber & Faber, 1945
- Lord of the Three Worlds, (with designs by Topolski), Faber & Faber, 1947
Other
- Lords of the Sunset: A Tour in the Shan States (Collis toured the Shan States in Northern Burma in the winter of 1937, meeting the various local rulers, attending a funeral, and following a murder trial), Faber & Faber, 1938
- Alva Paintings and Drawings, John Lane at the Bodley Head, 1942
References
- The Kildare Nationalist, 2 November 2006
