[First Edition] Understanding India

[1st ed., 1st printing ; xiii, 329 p. front., illus., plates, port. 23 cm. LCCN 28024112 OCLC 2186255 Classification - LC DS421 .W5 ; pale green cloth in chipped dustjacket ; maps on endpapers ; Gertrude Marvin Williams (July 10, 1884 - April 16, 1974) was an American biographer and journalist. Williams graduated from Wellesley College (1907) and received a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania (1937). She worked as a reporter for The New York Evening Sun. She is best known for her critical biographies of Annie Besant and Helena Blavatsky which have received positive reviews. According to a review of the book, Williams revealed that Blavatsky was a fraud and her "charlatanry was of the crudest variety". Williams travelled over 6,000 miles in India for five months in 1928. She travelled by herself without servants, spending time in homes, markets and villages. She interviewed Mahatma Gandhi and other Indian nationalists and spent time with people from different social classes. She described her observations in her book Understanding India (1928) Gandhi suggested the book would "help in many ways to correct the wrong impressions which Miss Mayo has given. Williams was dean of women at Wilkes College, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., from 1951 to 1953. ; various clippings and bits laid in ; some pencil markings ; else FINE/ G

Estimate:$85

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