The Other Side of Morning

Trade Paperback - NEW

LOCAL AUTHOR!

It is Sunday, June 20, 1756, in Calcutta. Fort William has been

overtaken, and most of its occupants have fled or been killed.

Only 145 denizens remain, and nothing could prepare them

for the horrors that await them in the Black Hole, a minuscule

military prison in which they will be crammed for the night.

Only twenty-two will survive, emerging from the mass of dead

bodies in the stifling Calcutta dawn.

During this dark episode in British–Indian relations, one

resolute and enigmatic man rose to the forefront of the

struggle and toiled to save as many lives as possible. Stephen

Goss makes this man, John Zephaniah Holwell, come alive in

a dynamic novelization of his exploits. Holwell was a doctor, a

scientist, a military surgeon, a mayor, a magistrate, and a

governor, as well as a devoted husband and father. The Other

Side of Morning imagines Holwell’s beginnings in his British

homeland and his quest for adventure as a young man. In this

scintillating portrayal of his life and work, we follow him as he

studies smallpox, becomes a proponent of cutting-edge

medical methods, falls in love, travels to India as a surgeon for

the East India Company, and plays a complex and pivotal role

in Indian-British relations in the first half of the eighteenth

century.

This is a story of personal triumph and tragedy, political

nuance, and the power of one man’s indomitable will. The

Other Side of Morning is an immersive journey into

pre-colonial India. In an illuminative blend of history and

fiction, Goss transports readers to eighteenth-century

Calcutta.