The Chersonese with the Gilding Off is usually described as a companion volume to Isabella Bird's better-known The Golden Chersonese , published in 1883 and also available as an Oxford Paperback. Starkly written and with a wry sense of humour, it is vastly different to Isabella Bird's rather idyllic account. Seeing the Malayan country `under totally different circumstances', Innes's describes her lonely and uncomfortable life as the wife of a minor government official, and her reluctant participation in the pettiness of colonial society, and in the life of the kampung around her.

Emily Innes