The Lacquer Lady - Virago Modern classic Author:F. Tennyson Jesse First published in 1929, this prodigious novel of adventure and romance matches the great tales of Kipling and Stevenson, Buchan and Maugham. Based on a true historical incident, The Lacquer Lady is set in the 1880s in the gem city of Mandalay during the last years of the opulent, decaying Kingdom of Burma. Into the Royal Palace, with its whispe... more »ring gardens, its elaborate ritual, its savage violence, its intrigue, comes Fanny Mornoi, the young daughter of a ne'er-do-well British merchant and a Burmese woman. Pretty, vain, impertinent, and brave - just back from a dull boarding school in Brighton - Fanny becomes the favorite of the Burmese queen Supaya-lat.« less