Modern India

On the deck of the Mongolia, cricket gives way to dancing—and titled passengers glitter beneath the Indian Ocean night in jewels fit for a royal banquet.

In the winter of 1903–04, William Eleroy Curtis sails toward Bombay among British officers and aristocrats, Indian travelers, honeymooners and government servants. The ship is a floating house party, but its easy diversions—cricket matches, evening dances and deckside gossip—also expose the social boundaries between its passengers. Curtis watches their customs with an American’s sharp, sometimes sharply judgmental eye, then turns toward Bombay, the “Eye of India,” where the voyage’s mix of cultures takes on a larger scale. What might this shipboard society reveal about the country just beyond the harbor?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.