James Clavell Books In Order

Publication Order of Asian Saga Books

Chronological Order of Asian Saga Books

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

James Clavell was born under the name of David Dumaresq Clavell. He is considered to be a great foreign writer, and he is especially known for his fictional works about Asian civilizations. Clavell was born on the 10th of March, 1924 in the city of Sydney. He later perished on the sixth of September in the town of Velvety, Switzerland.

Personal Life

Clavell spent his youth in Great Britain. He subsequently enlisted in the Noble Artillery. Clavell developed an interest in making motion pictures. His primary works included screenplays such as The Soar and The large Escape. Although Clavell composed screenplays and short films incessantly for a span of time, he later started to write novels in 1960. Struggles for power and riches and, furthermore, sexual themes and love dominate the topics of Clavell’s fiction. In his books, the western and eastern worlds as well as male and feminine genders clash. Clavell’s other books also describe the monuments of Tai-Pan and noble dwellings. They are set in the context of historic and modern Hong Kong. Shōgun (1975) takes place in seventeenth-century Japan. Whirlwind (1986) is set in the context of Iran throughout its’ 1979 transformation; and Gai-Jin (1993) is set in nineteenth-century Japan.

Writing Career

Clavell grew up in England and later became a member of the Royal Artillery. A motorcycle wound caused him to leave the military in 1946. At this time he developed an interest in film. His first writings were screenplays, which included works such as The Fly (1958) and The Large Get Away (1963); along with others). While Clavell proceeded to compose screenplays and to direct movies for many years, in 1960 he also started to compose novels. The author based his first innovative novel, Monarch Rat (1962; recorded on film 1965), on his familiarity with being a detainee of the Japanese throughout World War II. Labors for power and riches and, secondarily, sex and love dominate the themes of his fiction as do the contrast between West and East and male and female conflict. Clavell’s other books were subsequently made into TV miniseries; in fact the 1980 version of Shōgun was one of the most popular miniseries ever made.

Born in Australia, Clavell was the son of Commander Richard Clavell, a British Navy agent who was stationed in Australia in the Regal Australian Navy. In 1940, when Clavell had completed his lower schooling at Portsmouth Grammar School, he joined the regal Artillery in order to pursue his family’s tradition. Following the outbreak of World War II, between the ages of 16 and 19, Clavell joined the regal Artillery in 1940. He was then dispatched to Malaya to fight the Japanese. Subsequently, Clavell was moved to Changi Prison in Singapore. Clavell endured the severity of his Japanese captors.

According to the introduction to King Rat, over 90% of the prisoners who went into Changi never emerged alive. Clavell was allegedly kept, along with his whole battalion, by an American prisoner of conflict who subsequently became the model for the protagonist King in Clavell’s King Rat. By 1946, Clavell had been promoted to the rank of head person, but a motorcycle misfortune terminated his infantry vocation. He then enrolled at the University of Birmingham, where he met April Stride, an actress, who he later married in 1949.

Democratically, Clavell was said to have been a proponent of laissez-faire capitalism and an ardent individualist, as numerous of his publications’ champions exemplify. Clavell admired the founder of the Objectivist school of beliefs, and sent him a copy of Noble Dwelling in 1981 with the inscription “This is for Ayn Rand—one of the genuine, factual talents on this soil for which numerous, numerous thanks. James C, New York, 2 September 81.” [4] In 1963, Clavell became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He passed away of a stroke while suffering from the pain of a cancerous disease in Switzerland in 1994. Following sponsorship by his widow, the archive and library of the Royal Artillery Museum in Regal Arsenal, Woolwich, in England has been renamed the James Clavell library in the author’s.

James Clavell wrote King Rat in a 1962. Set in the context of World War II, Clavell’s literary debut recounts the labor for the survival of British, Australian, Dutch, New Zealand and American prisoners of war in a Japanese camp in Singapore. It recounts the noble plot acquainted by Clavell’s own three-year know-how as a detainee in the notorious Changi jail bivouac. One of the main characters, Peter Marlowe, is based upon Clavell’s younger self. Despite its fearsome reputation, Changi was amongst the better-run Japanese bivouacs, with only 850 deaths eliminating the 87,000 prisoners who passed through. The novel opens in early 1945. Peter Marlowe, a juvenile British RAF Flight Lieutenant, has been a P.O.W. since 1942. Marlowe arrives at the vigilance of the “King”, an American corporal who has become the most successful trader and a very dark marketer in Changi. When the King sees him conversing in Malay, one of Marlowe’s languages, understanding, honesty and victorious character cause the monarch to befriend the King and to try to engage him in very dark market deals. This conveys to Marlowe to the attention of Robin Grey, a British agent and Provost Marshal of the bivouac, which has evolved into Javert-like obsession with the monarch. The King wants to reprimand him for violating bivouac guidelines. Grey attempts to sustain the military control and respect of the prisoners and he sees the King as the antithesis of his beliefs. As the child of a working-class family, Grey pursues the directions for their own sake, thus utilizing his position as Provost Marshal to gain a status that would otherwise be unavailable to him in British humanity.

Tai-Pan is an innovative writing by James-Clavell about American and European traders who migrated to Hong Kong following the end of the First opium conflict in the year 1842. It is the 2nd book in Clavell’s “Asian-Saga”. The novel-begins following the British triumph of the first-Opium conflict and the seizure-of-Hong Kong. Whereas the isle is mostly-uninhabited and the-terrain is unfriendly, the territory has a large-natural harbor that both the British-government and diverse swapping companies accept to be truly useful for the import-of-merchandise to be swapped on mainland ceramic, a highly lucrative-market. Whereas the innovative features include many individual features, Tyler Brock and Dirk Struan, former-shipmates and the proprietors of two-massive (fictional) trading companies are the major focal-points of the novel. Their rocky-and often abusive connection as seamen-initiated an intense-amount of competitive-stress. All throughout-the-novel, both-men seek to decimate each other in the affairs of enterprise and personal-affairs. Struan is referred-to throughout the text as Tai-Pan, thus indicating his-position as head of the biggest of all of the trading businesses in Asia. Clavell-translates Tai-Pan as “Supreme-Leader,” whereas according to the Tai-Pan application, “Big-Shot” might be a more unquestionable title. Brock, owner of the second-largest of the swapping businesses, constantly vies to decimate Struan’s company and status in an attempt to both to exact payback on Struan and to become the-new “Tai-Pan” of Chinese trade.

James Clavell is the name of the famous British novelist, who has written many wonderful novels in his career. He was born on October 10, 1921 in Sydney, Australia and was given name Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell at his birth. Apart from being a successful author, Clavell was also a well known director and screenwriter. At the time of the Second World War, he joined the British Navy and later became the prisoner of war. As far as his writing career is concerned, he is best known for writing down the epic Asian Saga series. The novels of this series were adapted into a television series by Clavell himself, along with several film adaptations such as The Great Escape and To Sir, With Love. Clavell died on September 7, 1994 at the age of 72 in Vevey, Switzerland due to cancer. The childhood of James Clavell was spent around the military personnel as he was the son of a British Royal Navy officer, Commander Richard Clavell. His father was stationed on secondment to the Royal Navy in Australia between the years 1920 and 1922, in which Clavell was born. He went on to receive his primary education from the Portsmouth Grammar School and at the age of nineteen, joined the Royal Artillery in the year 1940. Clavell was immediately sent to fight against the Japanese in Malaya. Eventually, he got injured from a machine gun fire and was captured as a prisoner of war. He was later sent to the Japanese POW camp in Java. After that, he was transferred to the Changi Prison situated in Singapore.

Clavell says that he suffered a lot of atrocities from the Japanese captors, but considers himself lucky to come out alive as it was believed that 90 percent of the prisoners are not able to make out alive from the Changi Prison. He has also given a brief account of his experiences as a prisoner of war in the introductory part of one of his novels. He was saved by an American prisoner of war along with a whole battalion. Later in the year 1946, he rose to the rank of captain, but was cut short due to a motorcycle accident. Then Clavell enrolled himself at the Birmingham University, where he met with an actress named April Stride, who became his wife in the year 1949. One of the prominent characters of the novels written by Clavell is Peter Marlowe, who is described by him as an English POW in the Changi Prison during the Second World War, in the novel King Rat. In one of the other novels, Peter is shown as a novelist after a couple of decades, researching on the culture of Hong Kong. Clavell has done the character description of Peter Marlowe with reference to his own life story. He has also described Peter as writing a novel about the Changi Prison, which is actually based on his experiences and real events during his stay as a POW. In the year 1953, Clavell migrated to America along with his wife. He settled in Hollywood and began writing scripts for films. Later, he wrote the script of a war film and was nominated for the Writers Guild Award. After seeing success initially, Clavell decided to write, direct and produce a movie in the year 1967 named To SIr, With Love. This film had Sidney Poitier in the lead role and went on to become a box office hit.

The Asian Saga series written by author James Clavell has a total of 6 novels published between the years 1962 and 1993. The first novel of the series was called King Rat and was published by the Delta publishing house in the year 1962. The plot of the novel is set during the time of the Second World War, when the main characters were held as prisoners of war in a brutal camp in Japan. The plot takes an interesting turn when one of the prisoners, an American corporal takes dominance over the captors as well as the captives. He shows great courage and determination to exploit every opportunity for escaping from the prison. The weapons used by him were the human courage and the understanding of the weaknesses of the humans. With the help of these, he was extremely willing to enlarge his power and destroy all those who come in his way. The American corporal named Peter Marlowe was held captive in the notorious Changi Prison in Singapore as a prisoner of war, along with other prisoners from Australia, New Zealand, England and Netherlands. The description of the plot and the character sketch of Peter Marlowe is based on the personal experience of 3 years that the author spent in the Changi Prison as a prisoner of war. The novel was made into a movie in the year 1965 with a few alterations in the original character sketches. Also a mini TV series called Changi was developed based on the events of this novel. The second novel of the Asian Saga series was published by the Dell publishing house in the year 1966. It was titled ‘Tai-Pan’ and gave a description of the European traders and adventurers during the early nineteenth century, when they penetrated the forbidden market on the Chinese mainland for the first time.

Around the same time, an Englishman named Dirk Struan sets out for converting the desolate island of the country of Hong Kong an impregnable and vast fortress of the British Empire. In that exotic place and during the exciting time of that period, Dirk was considered as a giant and very powerful. He was determined to make himself the supreme leader of the island, the Tai-Pan. In the opening sequence of the novel, the Britishes become victorious in the first Opium War and seize Hong Kong. At that time, Hong Kong was largely uninhabited and had unfriendly terrains all over. However, it had a large natural harbor that everyone believed, including the British government and the trading companies, that it will come handy for the import of merchandise for trading on the mainland China and converting it into a lucrative market. The novel features Tyler Brock and Dirk Struan as the main characters, who are described as the owners of two massive trading companies. They are also former shipmates and often have a rocky and abusive friendship with each other. Both of them try to destroy each other in personal and business affairs throughout the novel. Dirk, in particular, is referred to as Tai-Pan, which shows him as the supreme leader and the head of the largest trading company in Asia. On the other hand, Brock owns the second largest trading company and constantly tries to destroy Dirk’s company in order to take revenge from him as well as become the new Tai-Pan of the lucrative Chinese mainland trade. The novel was adapted into a film in the year 1986 titled ‘Tai-Pan’ and starred Bryan Brown, John Stanton and Joan Chen in the lead roles. The film was made with the same set of characters and plots, however, there were some changes made in the original script in order to make it suitable for all types of audiences.