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Valerie Fitzgerald
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Zemindar Paperback – August 8, 2023

by Valerie Fitzgerald (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,608 ratings
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INDIA, 1850s.

Following a brief courtship, newlyweds Emily and Charles Flood embark upon an ambitious honeymoon in India. Accompanied by Emily's cousin, Laura, the trio hope to seek out Charles's enigmatic half-brother, Oliver Erskine – a hugely wealthy landowner and dedicated bachelor. Though the brothers are strangers, Charles hopes their blood ties could see him named as Oliver's heir.

Yet India balances on a knife-edge. As discontent at the Raj's rule tears through the country, the visitors become swept up in its bloody chaos.

International bestseller Zemindar is a historically rich, emotionally turbulent novel set during India's First War of Independence.

Praise for Zemindar:
'If you loved The Far Pavilions – and who didn't – this will be your dish too' Cosmopolitan
'Utterly addictive' Washington Post

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    832 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Apollo
  4. Publication date
    August 8, 2023
  5. Dimensions
    5.1 x 2 x 7.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1804542741
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1804542743
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“If you loved The Far Pavilions – and who didn't – this will be your dish too” ―Cosmopolitan

“Utterly addictive... Leaves us panting for the sequel” ―Washington Post

About the Author

Zemindar is drawn from personal experience. Valerie Fitzgerald's grandmother lived through the Indian Mutiny and when her soldier father was posted to Lucknow in WW2, she spent winters in the city and her summers on a zemindari estate.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Apollo (August 8, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 832 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1804542741
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1804542743
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.23 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.1 x 2 x 7.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,608 ratings

About the author

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Valerie Fitzgerald

Valerie Fitzgerald

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
1,608 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jana L.Perskie
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply OUTSTANDING!!! A Must Read!
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2004
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I cannot heap enough praise on Valerie Fitzgerald's superb historical novel "Zemindar." I have always had an interest in India, especially during the period of the British Raj. I picked up a copy of this book at a used bookstore by chance, little knowing that it was to become one of my favorite novels. It is a beautifully written, impeccably researched, totally addictive read.
Set in India during the Raj, the author follows the lives of a newly married British couple on honeymoon to India, their young cousin, an Englishwoman who is companion to the bride, and the groom's half-brother, a European hereditary ruler - a zemindar - to his own fabulous kingdom, Hassanganj. This epic saga of love, war, tragedy and ultimate triumph is drawn from the author's personal experience. Ms. Fitzgerald's grandmother lived through the Indian Sepoy Mutiny, which is vividly recreated here. And the author, herself, spent her adolescence in Lucknow where her father was stationed during WWII. Her summers were spent on a zemindari estate similar to Oliver Erskine's extraordinary holdings. This personal perspective adds tremendously to the book's historical accuracy and provides the reader with an unusual, caring and honest perspective of the country, the native population and their British rulers.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that Ms. Fitzgerald not only provides a detailed and colorful portrait of India but she has created an exceptional cast of characters, both Indian and British, realistic and strong enough to inhabit the times in which they lived. Notable among them are Oliver Erskine - a combination of Edward Rochester (from Jane Eyre) and Rhett Butler (improbable but most effective and believable) - and Laura Hewitt. The novel is worth the read just to become acquainted with these two.
Along with "The Siege of Krishnapur," "Zemindar" is one of the best period works of historical fiction. It won the Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize in 1981, selected from scores of manuscripts that included M. M. Kaye's "The Far Pavillions." Not to be missed!
JANA
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lauren sylvan
4.0 out of 5 stars Romantic but gritty retelling of the Sepoy Rebellion
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2011
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Zemindar is set in 1850s India during the Sepoy Rebellion (sometimes referred to in India as `the first war for independence', but we won't go into that here). Although I enjoyed it from the first, I was made increasingly uneasy by the many plot elements this book had in common with an earlier Sepoy Rebellion novel, M.M. Kaye's the Shadow of the Moon. There was the long voyage out from England, the regretted marriage, the unwanted impending pregnancy which kept the protagonists from moving to the safety of the hills, the constant complication of the resulting infant, the period of hiding in the home of a wealthy Muslim in Lucknow only on the sufferance of the chief lady of the household. Most similar of all was the overarching presence of a British man raised in India who knew and loved the land and felt a responsibility to the people that went beyond any romantic attachment. And the same British functionaries (historical, so of course they had the same names) either applauded or condemned him as having `gone native'.

What I liked about Zemindar is that the male romantic interest was downright ugly, but the writer found a way to portray his attractiveness to her female romantic interest which drew the reader in as well. The lady was merely average too, which is not uncommon, but always nice (I for one prefer heroines who are attractive because they are lovable, not because they are lovely), but Fitzgerald unwound her plot so that it was perfectly obvious why the hero wanted her instead of somebody pretty.

Some little glitches jerked me out of the plot, like a baby that went from being ignored and dumped on a native nanny to being breast-fed by the mother four weeks later, and then it is explained that this tiny infant would be more comfortable on a day-long journey with our female protagonist - who is not the nursing mother! Or the aforementioned protagonist developing a longing for her native England and not wanting to live in foreign India, although the story starts off by making it clear that she was raised in Italy until she was a teenager.

There is a lot of good information here. I felt the description of the horrors of the Cawnpore massacre went on a little long, but M.M. Kaye is far worse in that regard, so I was already jaded on that sorry bit of history.

All in all, an enjoyable read, and a nice way to pick up a speaking acquaintance with this sequence of events so pivotal to the brew that created modern India. Also starts a good deal faster than Kaye's Shadow of the Moon.
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Parth Pahuja
5.0 out of 5 stars Slow, steady, build up of an epic story
Reviewed in India on February 6, 2024
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Through the eyes of a very intelligent but lonely British woman this novel brings to life an estate in Awadh, its larger than life Zamindar, and the beauty and complexities of colonial India hurtling headfirst into the first war of independence of 1857. A hidden, underrated, absolute gem of a novel.
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Thule
5.0 out of 5 stars A plucky, small bantam hen
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2022
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One of my forebears was, for a short while and not long after the Siege of Lucknow, gardener (in England) to one of the 'gentlemen volunteers' who had manned the Innes Stockade, one of the perilous outposts of the Residency at Lucknow, which was besieged by Indian 'mutineers' in 1857.
My forebear's employer wrote a contemporary, published account of his experiences at Lucknow, as did numerous other people: some ladies; a surgeon; a surviving defender; Maria Germon (who makes an appearance in Zemindar); and so on. Many of their accounts are now available on archive dot org.
Having read some of those factual, prosaic accounts, through further googling the Indian Mutiny and the sieges of Lucknow and Cawnpore I came upon Valerie Fitzgerald's Zemindar. What a magnificent opus unicum; AFAIK she has written nothing else; IMO, there is no need to! Excellence is hard to surpass...
Like Georgette Heyer's acclaimed account of the Battle of Waterloo in An Infamous Army, but on a much vaster, dare I say it, grander, more deeply exploratory scale, Fitzgerald describes the Siege of Lucknow: the fear, bravery, privations, gore, death and destruction amongst civilians and soldiers alike. The social mores and pettiness of the British 'caste system', as she describes it, that yet prevailed even abroad come under her scrutiny. Nor does she flinch from representing the astounding incompetence of certain of the army's Generals: 'Is all history the outcome ... of a chance concatenation of ignorance and arrogance in some one character?'.
Into this historical account Fitzgerald weaves a particularly sensitive romantic tale. I shall not describe the eventual hero, but our heroine, one of the besieged, is likened to 'a plucky small bantam hen' (I love it!), of no particular physical beauty (for a change) but of a challenging, questioning, forthright yet perhaps still immature intellect. Fresh out of England, she is plunged into a totally different physical and cultural environment, and a mutiny to boot.
This is a beautifully written, riveting book. It's almost an impertinence to describe it as nothing more or less than an historical romantic novel: it goes deeper than that. If you read it closely enough, you're invited, for instance, to ponder the difference between Kismet, Luck and Providence. Hmmm. And, along the tortuous (I could equally mean torturous) road to the denouement, I found it begging the question: What would be your priorities? What would YOU do, or - had you been a Victorian 'lady' at home or abroad - have done? It's a book that, quite unexpectedly, made me think.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Can't put down!
Reviewed in Canada on March 27, 2019
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There are some books that you read, and don't forget. This is one of them. I have already read this book many, many years ago, and now wanted to read again. My hardcover is packed away somewhere in the attic, so I was very happy to find it for my Kindle. And it's just as interesting as the first time. Even though it's only a novel, there is a lot of history in the story. If you're interested in India during the British rule, I highly recommend this book.
2 people found this helpful
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Andrea P.
5.0 out of 5 stars Herausragendes fantastisches Buch!!!
Reviewed in Germany on February 24, 2016
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Wäre es möglich, 7 statt 5 Sterne zu vergeben, Zemindar hätte sie von mir erhalten! Was für ein großartiger Roman!

Ich habe dieses Buch, das immerhin 800 Seiten umfasst, geradezu verschlungen und nun leider vor einigen Tagen ausgelesen und es hält mich immer noch gefangen. Im absolut positiven Sinn! Der Autorin ist es meisterhaft gelungen, dem Leser die dramatischen Ereignisse rund um den Sepoy-Aufstand und der Belagerung der Festung in Lucknow 1857 näher zu bringen. Mit ihren wirklich gelungenen Protagonisten, deren Aktionen und Erlebnisse zeitweilig ein wenig an Pride und Prejudice bzw. Jane Eyre erinnern, fiebert man wirklich mit, sie wachsen einem so ans Herz, dass man wirklich mitleidet bzw. sich mit ihnen freut. Und absolut packend schildert die Autorin die Erlebnisse während der monatelangen Belagerung der Festung Lucknow. Hier kommt auch beim Leser ein fast schon klaustrophobisches Gefühl hoch. Ein hochspannender, geschichtlich sehr authentischer Roman mit sehr gut und sympathisch gezeichneten Protagonisten, aber auch toll entwickelten Nebenfiguren. Ein Muss für alle, die Rebecca Ryman`s "Wer Liebe verspricht" mochten! Absolute Empfehlung. Wirklich ausgesprochen schade, dass diese sehr begabte Autorin keine Fortsetzung folgen ließ...
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La veneziana
5.0 out of 5 stars Tesoro nascosto
Reviewed in Italy on January 27, 2016
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Ho acquistato questo romanzo casualmente in formato Kindle poiché non è più in pubblicazione e non me ne sono pentita!
Ambientato in India nel 1857 nel periodo della Rivolta dei Sepoys, "Zemindar" segue le vicende di Laura Hewitt, una gentildonna impoverita che accompagna in luna di miele la cugina ed il marito (di cui si è infatuata) per conoscere il fratellastro di costui, Oliver Erskine, un ricco proprietario terriero (uno Zemindar) la cui vastisima proprietà, Hassanganj, si estende in un'area non distante da Lucknow.
Chi conosce un pochino la storia della colonizzazione britannica in quel Paese non avrà difficoltà a indovinare la trama che dall'arrivo dei 3 viaggiatori a Hassanganj farà incrociare la loro storia con la Storia.
Travolti dall'ammutinamento e dagli orrori inflitti da indiani ed inglesi, Laura ed Oliver e Emily e Charles si troveranno coinvolti nel massacro di Cawnpore, nell'assedio di Lucknow e negli intrighi politici di quei lunghi mesi e la loro vita sarà mutata per sempre.
Ho molto apprezzato la evidente competenza della scrittrice quanto a temi e luoghi (la sua nonna aveva effettivamente vissuto in India durante quel periodo ed è stata una testimone dirtta degli eventi descritti e la Fitzgerald stessa ha abitato a Lucknow con il padre durante la seconda guerra mondiale), ma ciò che mi ha colpito è che l'inquadramento storico non sembra mai calato dall'alto con descrizioni lunghe e noiose. Invece gli eventi si svolgono assieme ai personaggi ed anche se gli esiti sono noti, sono le persone con le loro scelte a dirigersi ognuna verso il proprio destino.
Altra nota di merito sono i personaggi stessi che, principali o secondari che siano, hanno uno spessore ed un comportamento consistente con il periodo: nessuna scelta "moderna" per donne dell'Ottocento e un senso dell'onore per gli uomini che a noi sembra assurdamente rigido in alcune faccende e tragicamente lacunoso in altre.
Nel romanzo, il "viaggio" sentimentale di Laura verso Oliver è trattato in modo molto pudico, come giusto per l'epoca, ma non sta al centro della vicenda.
Infatti definirei questo un romanzo corale di uomini e donne (britannici e indiani) improvvisamente in balia di eventi straordinari e con i dubbi, le sofferenze, i cambi di cuore, la resistenza o il cedimento di fronte agli orrori, le scelte giuste o sbagliate che sono, questi sì, di chiunque in qualunque epoca e con i quali ci si può immedesimare e che si possono intimamente comprendere e caritatevolmente giudicare.
Ci sono alcuni punti in cui la vicenda conosce un calo di ritmo perché l'ansia da parte della scrittrice di farci entrare in tutti gli aspetti, per esempio, dell'assedio di Lucknow, trascina un pochino troppo la trama, ma si tratta di parti brevi che non detraggono dal complessivo, grande godimento di questo bellissimo romanzo.
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