Author. M.M. Kaye was most known for authoring "The Far Pavilions", which has been described as the "Gone With The Wind" of India. Born Mary Margaret Kaye, she was the oldest daughter of a British intelligence officer in the Indian Army, Sir Cecil Kaye and his wife Margaret Sarah Bryson, a watercolor artist. She was sent to an English boarding school as a child learning art illustration for children's books and Christmas cards. She returned to India in 1926. She was unhappy there especially after her father's death, thus she returned to England where she continue to be an illustrator for children's books and eventually wrote books of her own. In 1940, she wrote her first adult book, "Six Bars at Seven". In 1945, she married Godfrey John Hamilton, an British Indian army officer. In 1947, the British Indian army was resolved, and to continue his career, her husband was transferred to the British Army; she and her children followed his military career to twenty-seven locations in nineteen years. She utilized several of these location in a series of crime novels. It was at the point that she used the pen name M. M. Kaye instead of the "Mollie Kaye" from the earlier period of her career. In 1957, she wrote, after a trip to India, her first historical novel, "Shadow of the Moon"; she complained that most of the romance was edited by the publisher without her prior knowledge. Her second novel "The Sun In the Morning" was published in 1963; it too was about India. It was after her husband's retirement in 1967 that she started her masterpiece, "The Far Pavilions"; it was published in 1978 as a bout with cancer and chemotherapy delayed her finishing the book as planned. The novel was a world-wide success. With this great success, she republished "Shadow of the Moon" as she originally wrote it. "Trade Winds", one of her crime novels was also republished, and later she wrote a half-a-dozen new ones with titles starting with the word "Death". She wrote and illustrated another children book, "The Ordinary Princess". Her three-volume autobiography was published as "Share of Summer: The Sun in the Morning, Golden Afternoon and Enchanted Evening". In 1984, "The Far Pavilions" was made into TV mini-series which is still available today on DVD. In March of 2003, she was awarded the Colonel James Tod International Award for the showing the spirit of the people of India in her writings She lived to be 95 years old. Her ashes was scattered by Michael Ward and his wife Elaine; he was the producer of the West End musical version of "The Far Pavilions".