Kindle Wireless Reading Device

Digital books about Angkor, Cambodian travel guides, history and even folktales are literally at your fingertips with Amazon’s Kindle Reader.

Kindle has been Amazon’s #1 bestselling item for two years running. It’s also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any Amazon product! Amazon just introduced an improved version for only $139 so if you’ve been waiting to try this technology, this could be the time.

Best of all, Kindle users save money on their books because Amazon offers some Cambodian titles at a substantial savings.

For example:

Angkor the Magnificent – The Wonder City of Ancient Cambodia

By Helen Candee - $9.99 (List $39.95)

“The tale of it is incredible;
the wonder which is Angkor is unmatched in Asia.”

Angkor the Magnificent

So begins Helen Churchill Candee’s classic tale of Asian adventure. Today, readers can again experience the mystery of Cambodia’s vast jungle temples through her eyes.

Although Helen Candee is best known for surviving the sinking of the RMS Titanic, she walked with kings, presidents, the wealthy and the powerful. entertaining, educating and influencing them. This independent woman championed feminine equality and fought tirelessly for woman’s rights.

As a single woman she traveled the Far East with a keen eye for detail, an inquisitive mind, and a sensitivity for local culture. Helen Candee’s travelogue remains one of the most evocative English language accounts of the ancient Khmer capital.

This special Kindle edition included her complete 1924 work with dozens of antique illustrations, an index and bibliography. This digital version also features an original biography of Helen Candee by historian Randy Bryan Bigham, and a reprint of Candee’s original account of the Titanic disaster itself.

A History of Cambodia

By David Chandler - $19.25 (Digital list price $35)

A History of Cambodia

This clear and concise volume provides a timely overview of Cambodia, a small but increasingly visible Southeast Asian nation. Hailed by the Journal of Asian Studies as an “original contribution, superior to any other existing work,” the first edition ended in 1953 with Cambodia’s independence from France; the second carries the narrative forward to the present.

In the new material, Chandler focuses especially on the unstable but influential career of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the bloody reign of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, and the relative calm that followed the Vietnamese invasion of 1979. This comprehensive general description and analysis of Cambodia will illuminate—for specialists and general readers alike—the history and contemporary politics of a country long misunderstood.

Frommer’s Cambodia and Laos

By Daniel White - $9.99 (List $21.99)

Frommer's Cambodia and Laos

This new first edition guide introduces two exotic destinations fast becoming required stops for globetrotting tourists. Through our expert author, readers are exposed to the rich culture and poignant history in Cambodia and Laos. Discover the region’s food and gift markets, lovely beaches and islands, colorful temples, and charming villages.

This title covers highlights of both countries, including Cambodia’s tourist Mecca and spiritual center Angkor Wat, capital Phnom Penh, and beach resort Sihanoukville.

Laos covers the relaxed city Vientiane, Luang Prabang (a UNESCO World Heritage city for its blend of Laotian and European architecture), and top spots for ecotourism.

The planning chapter includes extensive information on sustainable development and volunteer vacations. Special features include a Khmer and Laotian language primer and separate history and culture chapters for both nations.

Cambodia Travel Adventures

By Janet Arrowood – $7.99

Cambodia Travel Adventures

This book is extracted from our much larger guide to Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia, and it focuses on Cambodia primarily.

Janet Arrowood is a long-time and frequent visitor to Southeast Asia.

Huge lakes, tremendous waterfalls, elephant rides, jungles, wonderful people, fabulous food. The sense of the new and unknown will amaze you. Prices? Phenomenally low. And the scenery is spectacular. Canoe or kayak the South China Sea, see some of the largest waterfalls in the world, visit the islands, trek to hill-tribe areas, visit former royal palaces, wander through local markets.

The imperial temples are unforgettable. Cambodia, almost undiscovered by Westerners, is a land of stunning scenery.

“Travel Adventures” are about living more intensely, waking up to your surroundings and truly experiencing all that you encounter. Each book offers an ideal mix of practical travel info along with culturally enriching activities and physical adventures. And the fun is for everyone, no matter what his or her age or ability.

Comprehensive background information – history, culture, geography and climate – gives you a solid knowledge of each destination and its people. Regional chapters take you on an introductory tour, with stops at museums, historic sites and local attractions. Places to stay and eat; transportation to, from and around your destination; practical concerns; tourism contacts – its all here! Detailed maps feature walking and driving tours. Then come the adventures – both cultural and physical – from canoeing and hiking to taking dance or cooking classes. This unique approach allows you to really immerse yourself in the local culture.

Folk Tales from Cambodia

By Raja Sharma - $2.39

Folk Tales From Cambodia

Cambodian Folktales grew from the imagination and the lives of people, passed through from generation to generation, the stories have sometimes altered during the retelling process, ordinary characters become bigger than life, situations exaggerated.

They remain popular both with adults and children, especially the latter who respond quickly to the stories. They are simple to understand with no complicated plot involved, they are short, and sometimes humorous. The sense of justice is always there, the good character will be rewarded and the evil one always gets punished at the end! Folktales may lead to a better understanding of customs and culture. Here are the folktales, so enjoy! They are sure to delight you.

Details on the Amazon Kindle

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Simply put, it’s the best dedicated ebook reader you can buy… Amazon has managed to increase the contrast on the Kindle in a way that sets it above the Nook, Sony Readers, or any other dedicated ebook reader we’ve tested.” - PC Magazine

At the ancient Khmer temple of Angkor Wat, an American artist discovered a special peace that she carried throughout her life…and beyond.

Angkor Wat sunrise. © Copyright Gary Ng.

By STEPHEN GOLDFARB, Alabama Heritage Magazine

IN 1926 LUCILLE SINCLAIR DOUGLASS (1878-1935) visited the ancient Cambodian ruins at Angkor for the first time. That December the forty-eight-year-old artist wrote to her friend Leona Caldwell of her first impressions of this far-off and exotic place:

“Angkor is one of the really great experiences of my life-a more intellectual than emotional experience — not that it left me cold, quite the contrary — but it was more of an uplift — an inspiration.

“Our stay — longer than most tourists — was all too short — Angkor Wat alone requires years of study — living with understanding — a few days seems but a mockery.

“I have never had a place affect me so peculiarly. . . . I shall go back for a time as long as I can stand it and do further study on the spot.

“You see the ruins are set in the midst of the jungle — which held them in its clutches for so many centuries that it still seems jealous of them.”

Douglass described the Angkor climate as “the most trying [that] I have ever encountered … [with its] great humidity and high temperatures — an oppressive heaviness which brought all the moisture to the surface [of one's skin] and left you exhausted with the slightest effort.” And this complaint comes from a woman who grew up in central Alabama.

Douglass rendered Angkor Wat's western entrance in 1927 in this 10 7/8" x 14 1/2" etching. Courtesy US Library of Congress.

But Douglass did return the very next year.

She spent five months there with the purpose of rendering the temples and other ruins in etchings, which could capture their grandeur and intricacy in a way that photography could not. These etchings were first exhibited in April 1928 in Washington, D.C., under the auspices of the French ambassador, and then at the French Colonial Exhibition in Paris in 1931. The story of just how Douglass made her way from the Black Belt of Alabama to the jungles of Cambodia is one of equal parts natural talent, hard work, and fortuitous circumstances.

LUCILLE DOUGLASS WAS BORN ON NOVEMBER 4, 1878, in Tuskegee, Alabama, the daughter of Walton Eugene Douglass (a Civil War veteran) and Mary Sinclair (Mollie) Douglass. She grew up in a large house but in the genteel poverty that characterized so much of the nineteenth-century, postbellum South.

Little is known about Douglass’s early years, except that she was a sickly child who spent a great deal of time reading, favoring books about travels to distant and exotic lands. In interviews she gave after gaining a measure of fame, Douglass singled out the all-but-forgotten travel stories of Hezekiah Butterworth — whose seventeen volumes of Zig-Zag Journeys enjoyed considerable popularity among young readers near the end of the nineteenth century — as having stimulated her yearning for adventure.

Lucille Douglass - 1896. Courtesy Birmingham Public Library, Leona Caldwell Collection.

Douglass received her A.B. (baccalaureate degree) in 1895 at the age of seventeen at Alabama Conference Female College, a forerunner of Huntingdon College, where her mother taught. Unfortunately, records do not survive to describe Douglass’s course of study, though it seems safe to assume that she continued to receive art training from her mother, a practice begun when Douglass was a child.

In 1899 Douglass moved to Birmingham, where she made a living as both an artist and an art teacher. She occupied a studio in the old Watts Building between 1901 and 1908. The 1907 city directory listed her as a “china painter.”

Years later Douglass made reference to the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of roses that she painted on teacups and other crockery. The sale of this china, as well as hand-painted place cards, financed her future art training. In 1908 she banded with fellow artists Delia Dryer, Hannah Elliot, Carrie Hill, and four other female artists as founding members of the Birmingham Art Club.

Lucille Douglass in her studio with Hannah Elliot, 1907. Courtesy Birmingham Public Library, Hill Ferguson Collection.

Even before Douglass left for Europe in 1909, she sought art training beyond what was available in Birmingham. For several summers she attended the Art Students League in New York City, though there is no record with whom she studied. Between the years 1909 and 1912, she received art training in Europe.

In Paris she studied with Lucien Simon and René Menard. Of greater importance was the time she spent with Alexander Robinson. With his classes she traveled all over Europe-Holland, Spain, and Italy-and North Africa and became his assistant and an art teacher. After her first year with Robinson, she asked him for a frank evaluation of her work; his reply was indeed frank: “You have less talent than many, but you will go farther than the rest because once you undertake a thing you see it through.”

Lucille Douglass in Paris, 1911. Courtesy Birmingham Public Library, Hill Ferguson Collection.

A collection of her drawings and pastel sketches held in the Birmingham Museum of Art reflect her traditional art training, which emphasized the anatomically correct rendering of the human figure, and depict the local folkways of the places she visited. With two exhibits of her paintings displayed in Paris in 1911, she was on her way to establishing herself as an artist.

By 1913 Douglass had returned from Europe. She spent that summer with artist Isabelle Percy (who married George P. West in 1916), painting in the northern part of Percy’s home state of California.

World War I ended any further hopes of European travel and training and proved a trying time. City directories show that she kept a residence and studio in Birmingham from 1915 to 1917. Some sources claim that she took training as a nurse and worked with soldiers who were “shell shocked,” and that she herself had some kind of mental breakdown, for which she spent time recovering in Texas and California.

Her life took a fresh turn in 1920, when the forty-two-year-old Douglass accepted a position with the Methodist Missionary Society. She was employed to oversee a workshop in Shanghai in which Chinese women hand-colored an early form of photographic slide used by speakers to publicize the missionary work of the society. The job did not absorb all of her time and energy apparently, for she became first a writer and then associate editor of the weekly English-language publication, Shanghai Times, a position she held until 1924. During these years she traveled extensively in China as a member of the press. These trips were often dangerous, as China was in the midst of revolution and civil war.

While in China, Douglass became close friends with two female writers whose books she would eventually illustrate. Florence Wheelock Ayscough was born in Shanghai to missionary parents and educated in New England. She became a scholar of China and its literature, writing books about China and translating the works of early Chinese poets. Four of her books were illustrated by Douglass, the first three with ink drawings and the last with etchings.

Helen Churchill Candee

The second friend Douglass made in China was Helen Churchill Candee, who had, among other things, the distinction of surviving the 1912 sinking of the HMS Titanic. Roughly two decades apart in age, the two traveled together from November 1926 until January 1927.

This journey led them through the Far East-first to Indochina, then to Siam, and on to Java and BaIi. This adventure resulted in the 1927 publication of Candee’s book, New Journeys In Old Asia, for which Douglass executed twenty-one etchings. It was also on this journey that Douglass first visited Angkor. Candee had been there before and had published the book Angkor the Magnificent in 1924.

Angkor was the seat of the ancient Khmer empire from the ninth to the fifteenth century and was abandoned, only to be rediscovered in the 186Os by French explorers after Cambodia became part of the French overseas empire. Angkor — best known for the two complexes, Angkor Wat and the larger Angkor Thom — was the center of what is considered the most prosperous and sophisticated civilization in the history of Southeast Asia.

Angkor was not only a religious center but also the administrative center of the Khmer empire, with a vast system of reservoirs, canals, and moats-the basis of an extensive irrigation system for agriculture. Eventually the Khmers were overthrown, and the jungle reclaimed Angkor, though the ruins remained a pilgrimage site for Buddhists.

Etching of the Bayon rendered by Lucille Douglas in 1927, measuring 15 9/16" X 11 13/16". Courtesy Library of Congress.

Douglass saw more in Angkor than simply an exotic artistic subject. She gave detailed lectures on Angkor in both the United States and Europe. She also spoke on Angkor at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the School of Oriental Studies at the University of London, the Royal Asiatic Society (also in London), and at Oxford University, as well as many less august bodies. On January 10, 1930, she gave a talk at the National Geographic Society entitled “Angkor — A Royal Passion.” The brochure announcing the lecture gave the following description:

Knowledge of present conditions at the site of the ancient Cambodian metropolis will come to the Society through this interesting speaker, writer and artist, who will illustrate her talk with lantern slides, colored by herself, and motion pictures.

…In company with French archeologists Miss Douglass carefully examined the new excavations…. Her account will be authoritative, as well as entertaining.

For the last years of her life, Douglass made New York her home base, though she traveled frequently to Europe and occasionally visited Birmingham. From November 1928 until late spring of 1929, she was a faculty member of a “floating university.” On the ship President Wilson, Douglass taught art history, sketching, and painting to a hundred “boys and girls” of unspecified age as the ship sailed around the world.

An article in the November 6, 1928, New York Evening Post referred to Douglass as “one of America’s best known painters and etchers” and stated that the ship’s itinerary would include such exotic places as Siam, BaIi, Java, and Singapore, as well as “all the cities … on the more usual type of tour.”

In a letter to her friend, Leona Galdwell, Douglass wrote of her “floating university” experience: “I am glad … to have had the experience, though I should not care to repeat it.”

Lucille Douglas poses for a portrait in North Africa, date unknown. Courtesy Birminham Public Library Archives.

In a 1933 interview she gave to the New York World Telegram, a fifty-five-year-old Douglass reflected over her life of art and adventure:

I have made my life as I wanted it. I have given up marriage and home ties, because I know they would not be possible with my career. I am sorry not to have a home, but one must not be greedy. I have planned my life just as it is, and I am content with it.

After an illness that lasted several months Douglass died on September 26, 1935, in the home of a friend in Andover, Massachusetts.

Her remains were cremated and, in the following year, flown to Angkor where they were spread around what was described as “a magnificent mango tree.”

Under a spreading mango tree
(Encircling continuity)
There lies for all eternity
What particles survive the flame
Of one who now is but a name.

Civilizations long forgot
Left beauty in old Angkor Vat
An artist loved it well and true:
In paint and print she saved the view.
When she was called, she had one thought:
That was to lie in Angkor Vat.

What doth her Spirit — Who shall say
Where beauty reigns both night and day?
Free as air she is to roam.
With spreading mango tree for home.

Angkor Wat lotus pond sunrise. © Copyright Gary Ng.

Lucille’s Artistic Legacy

In the five years following her death there were three exhibits of Douglass’s works in New York galleries and a fourth after World War II in her adopted hometown of Birmingham.

Lucille Douglass pastel created between 1909 and 1913. Courtesy Birmingham Museum of Art. Gift of the estate of Leona Templeton Caldwell.

In January 1951 the Birmingham Historical Society and the Birmingham Art Club sponsored a retrospective of her works at the Birmingham Public Library, which brought pieces owned by museums together with those held by local collectors.

However, very little was written on Douglass over the next half-century, nor was her art exhibited. This was due no doubt to the triumph of abstraction and other modernist movements in art that made the works of Lucille Douglass seem old-fashioned.

Fortunately, there has been a renewed appreciation for her art in recent years, fueled by the current interest in female artists. The publication of Art of the New South: Women Artists of Birmingham, 1890-1950 (Birmingham Historical Society, 2004) by Vicki Leigh Ingham, which devotes an entire chapter to Lucille Douglass, is likely to be the beginning of a revival of interest in this accomplished artist and world traveler.”

About the Author

Stephen J. Goldfarb holds a Ph.D. in the history of science and technology from Case Western Reserve University. In 2007-2008, he curated the exhibit entitled “Howard Cook: Drawings of Alabama” for the Mobile Museum of Art and at the Huntsville Museum of Art.

Goldfarb has written articles previously for Alabama Heritage on artists Marian Acker Macpherson and Lucille Douglass. He now serves Alabama Heritage Quarterly History Magazine as a contributing editor for the “Reading the Southern Past” column. No stranger to Southern reading tastes, Goldfarb retired from the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library in 2003. He has reviewed books for both newspapers and scholarly journals.

© Copyright 2006 University of Alabama – This article previously appeared in Alabama Heritage magazine (Summer 2006, Issue 81) and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author and the University of Alabama.

By Michelle Vachon – The Cambodia Daily

© 2010 The Cambodia Daily – This article appears with the permission of the copyright holder. No further reproduction is permitted.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – For those of us living an easy flight or a bus tide away from Angkor, reading Helen Churchill Candee‘s book Ang­kor the Magnificent is a reminder that, for nearly a century, some people have virtually circled the globe for the privilege of seeing the temples that residents of Cambodia may take for granted.

As Helen Candee's photo shows, Angkor Wat had fewer visitors in the 1920's!

Her trip to Angkor in 1922 meant finding in Hong Kong a ship whose captain knew how to avoid pirates in the South China Sea, then sailing to Saigon, as Ho Chi Minh City was then called, and from there traveling by boat to Siem Reap province. But nothing deterred this American woman, a larger-than-life personality who ended up better known for writing one of the first eyewit­ness accounts of the sinking of the ship Titanic in 1912, on which she was a passenger.

Visiting Angkor, she described it as “one of the most grandiose cities of antiquity” in her book first published in 1924. “’In these precincts, the race called the Khmers lived a life of luxury, pomp and display, which has not been exceeded at any time in any part of the world. And all this was at a time when Europe was sunk in the dull apathy of the Dark Ages, when France was a savage coun­try, England uncivilized and Germany a hinter­land of barbarous hordes.”

"Angkor the Magnificent" - Helen Churchill Candee. DatAsia, Inc., 2008, Hardbound, 359 pages.

A new edition of “Angkor the Magnificent” has been released by the US publishing house DatAsia, which has published other out-of-print books dealing with Cambodia.

“I knew that her words were as relevant today as the day she wrote them,” DatASIA publisher and editor Kent Davis said.

Journalist and historian “Randy Bryan Bigham and other Titanic historians including Phillip Gowen provided text and photos for Helen’s first published biography,” Mr. Davis said.

Written as a journal rather than a travel guide, one of the most surprising aspects of her book on Angkor is how fresh it reads. Using a very person­al and even poetic style of writing, Ms Churchill Candee creates an intimacy with the reader as she describes fellow travelers and incidents that might have happened just yesterday: hotel guests complaining about their rooms, tourists fascinat­ed by Cambodian classical dancers or negotiating with market vendors.

Also found in her visit to Angkor is the female star of long-ago stage shows imposing her cap­rices on her patient husband, and a single woman who, while behaving as an austere celibate flirts with that same husband at the first opportunity. There also is the fat Catholic priest, taking the best seat in a small boat away from a Cambodian woman carrying a baby, two irascible journalists and a US artist eager to sketch everything she sees in Cambodia.

Ms Churchill Candee’s views on Vietnam and Cambodia are pointedly anti-colonialist, which one could expect from today’s Western commen­tators but less from a casual visitor 90 years ago. In Saigon, which she describes as a city of “luxu­ry, pomp, dissipation,” she found the French bored, trying to recreate the atmosphere of their towns back home while at the same time desper­ately hoping to leave the colony. Juxtaposed with the colonials are the Vietnamese, working 12 hours a day carrying buckets of coal to ships and pulling rickshaws, many of them living on the streets because of heavy French taxes, which made owning a home prohibitive.

“We look on the sallow nostalgic French and then the impoverished native and wonder why the combination was ever made,” she writes. “In the interests of civilization and proper progress is the proper answer. It is the greed of those who exploit Asia for the benefit of the West.”

In Phnom Penh, Ms Churchill Candee found a better atmosphere: The French appeared less unhappy and the Cambodians less scared. How­ever, she noted, King Sisowath and his Cam­bodian officials had no power, although, in theory, Cambodia was an independent country under the protection of France: The King was on a salary and most of the country’s revenues, exploited by the French, went to Paris.

1920's view of Phnom Penh's Royal Palace.

Ms Churchill Candee arrived at Angkor by boat and because the Tonle Sap lake’s water level was too low for the vessel to dock, passengers had to transfer from the bigger boat to small fish­ing embarkations at midnight. Doing this today in Siem Reap in the middle of the day in the dry sea­son is frightening enough, let alone in the middle of the night in 1922.

“We were a silent crowd, half asleep, and we were a timorous one,” she recounted. Cars were awaiting them on shore. At their Bungalow in the morning, they were greeted with a sight that one can only envy: Angkor Wat Their rustic hotel was about 100 meters from the monument’s first steps and moat.

“We had not been told [Angkor Wat] would greet us like the sun at early morning,” she writes. “But we were thrown before its beauty unprepared, unshrived, unshorn.” She would dedicate nearly two chapters to describing the temple.

The enigmatic faces of the Bayon temple mes­merized her: “Nowhere in the world does mutual race understanding seems so impossible as before the great temple of Bayon [...] An art expresses a people’s soul. A soul that could be thus expressed is not one that the West could understand,” she wrote.

Face tower at Preah Khan.

She also describes other monuments, including Ta Prohm and Prah Khan; her visit to Siem Reap town, then just a village; and a Cambodian classical dance performance at Angkor Wat.

She also speaks of the animals portrayed in sculptures and wall carvings at Angkor. “It is like nothing else,” she writes of the naga. “The form is the result of many centuries of legend and belief; the past evidence of past religion and stories.”

Ms Churchill Candee had come to Cambodia hoping to better understand what had happened after the Khmer empire lost its power around the 15th century. In the absence of books and ar­chives that were probably written on perishable material and destroyed by the elements and wars, leaving only religious and administrative records carved on stones, the transition between Angkor and the weak Cambodian nation of the late 19th century is hard to explain, she writes.

The Khmer dominated the region for cen­turies and then, she says at the end of her book, “The envy of the enemy killed them. [...] A race arose from obscurity; it built the most marvelous edifices of Asia; it was subjugated and it disappeared.”

Today, Angkor remains, she writes, “not only a secret place but a place full of secrets.”

Helen Churchill Candee at age 50.

Reading about Ms Churchill Candee’s life is as captivating as reading her book. Born in 1858 in New York City to one of the first English families to immigrate to the US in 1620, Ms Churchill Candee divorced her abusive husband in 1896 — ­something that, at the time, usually brought dis­grace on a high-society woman — Randy Bryan Bigham says in his chapter on her life.

Wishing to support herself and her two chil­dren, she started writing essays in US women’s publications, first on housekeeping and etiquette, and later on health, education and community government, Mr. Bigham wrote.

Her first book, “How Women May Earn a living,” was a best seller in 1900 and is considered groundbreaking. She supported women s rights all her rue, even heading a march in Wash­ington, DC, in 1913 for women’s suffrage.

This scene from the movie "Titanic" may have been inspired by Candee's experience.

A hostess who entertained US presidents as well as artists in Washington, she became an inte­rior decorator before the profession was ever es­tablished; worked for the White House as well as for embassy residences; and wrote a series of books on interior design, antique furnishings and tapestries.

Traveling extensively, she found herself on the Titanic on its fateful maiden journey. According to Mr. Bigham, the scene from the 1997 James Cameron film “Titanic” in which Jack and Rose stand at the ship’s bow came out of her memoirs.

During World War I, Ms Churchill Candee volun­teered at the front with the Red Cross in Italy, a country she especially loved. Her travels in the 1920s took her to Asia, on which she wrote travel and political stories. Her book on Angkor, one of the rare English-language publi­cations on the subject at the tune, earned her an award from King Sisowath.

She died in 1949 at the age of 90 at her cottage in the US state of Maine.

For more information about Helen Churchill Candee and her book  please visit AngkorSecrets.com.

When an envelope filled with review books arrives, I never know quite what to expect. As a copy of Angkor the Magnificent fell into my hands, it took a moment to realize that this was the long-awaited reprint of the Helen Churchill Candee journal of her travels through Cambodia in 1922 had finally arrived. This was a must-read book for me, and I was not disappointed with what I found in the pages of this wonderful book.

"Angkor the Magnificent" - Helen Churchill Candee. DatAsia, Inc., 2008 (Originally published 1924 by Frederick A. Stokes Co.) Hardbound, illustrated, 359 pages

Much more than a mere travelogue, Helen Candee wrote what was then a definitive look at ancient and early 20th Century Cambodia – considered “one of the first significant works on Cambodia in the English language.” She was honored in 1929 by the King of Cambodia for her work, and it is presented in a modern edition with original photos, spellings and artwork (with some minor editing done for clarity). The type has also been reset, but the original flavor of the book’s design left intact.

Although the maritime community knows Helen Candee as a Titanic survivor, she lived a long and full life as an adventurer, writer, journalist, social leader, suffragette, friend of presidents and especially as a noted interior decorator. The text of Angkor the Magnificent has been supplemented with two welcome additions; a biography of Helen Candee written by Randy Bingham and supplemented with additional information and insights by Phil Gowan, and Helen’s own slightly fictionalized tale of the disaster, Sealed Orders, first printed in Collier’s Weekly as the cover story of the May 4, 1912 issue.

Helen was already a skilled and seasoned writer when Angkor the Magnificent was written. Complete details of her journey to and the exploration of Angkor Wat are given with an almost lyrical cadence; she leaves little to the imagination, using very rich descriptions of the people, land and ruins so that the reader is easily able to imagine tromping with her through the jungles of southeast Asia. It was evident that she took great pride in relating to her readers just what she had witnessed, and did so in a way that allows armchair travelers like myself to live vicariously through the eyes of the author.

Life’s Decor is an engaging biography of Helen Candee, well researched and written by Randy Bryan Bigham. She was first a doting mother, and a divorcee at a time when divorce was a social taboo; this separation from an abusive husband lead to her supporting her two children through writing for various magazines. This vocation became the spring board for the successes that she had throughout the rest of her ninety years.

As the author of eight books and numerous magazine articles, Helen specialized in home decor—five of her books dealt with this subject. Bigham gives a highly condensed description of each volume, with subjects as diverse as How Women May Earn a Living (1900), The Tapestry Book (1912) and one fictional work, An Oklahoma Romance (1901) as well as two travel books.

RMS Titanic - 1912

Sealed Orders was written as a semi-biographical version of Helen’s voyage on the Titanic. Published just two weeks after the sinking, it gives a tantalizing glimpse of personalities on board (A blond woman on the steerage deck stands like a Viking’s daughter .. . she describes others as the prettiest woman, the artist of renown, and him of the bachelor’s cabin) as well as Candee’s own experiences on the ship. Chief among her descriptions-and the focus of the title-are three voyagers whose destinies would collide just a few days later-the iceberg, the Titanic and the Carpathia.

The article Sealed Orders is introduced by Bingham, giving insights into the personalities described so obliquely by Candee; adding details about the small group of protectors known as Our Coterie who surrounded her during the trip, and pointing out that she kept to herself certain details of what happened that long-ago night. This introduction does credit to the short story that follows.

Bingham relates Helen’s experiences, her observations of fellow passengers, the rescue effort and aftermath of the disaster. There is much to like about this section of the book although it would have been nice to have had more information about various people and places; for instance, I would have loved to learned more about the telegraphed correspondence between Helen and Lewis Butt, brother of Archie, as Lewis asked for details about his brother. (This reviewer does realize that the focus of this book is on Cambodia and not the author, and urges that a complete biography of Helen be written.)

Candee’s well written book has been supplemented with a bibliography on Cambodia and an index that concentrates solely on this book; this, along with judicious editing of the original text, has made this reprint of Angkor the Magnificent a valuable resource for anyone interested in the Far East. With additional Titanic-related content, this becomes a book that will both grace your bookshelves and help you learn more about Helen Churchill Candee.

The Titanic Historical Society (THS) is the premier source for Titanic and White Star Line information. THS is the original and largest Titanic society in the world. People of all ages and all countries who love the ship and her story are invited to join THS as members and receive the incomparable Titanic Commutator.

The Titanic Museum in Indian Orchard, Massachusetts, houses a superb collection of rare Titanic artifacts and documents donated by survivors. This was the first permanent exhibition of Titanic artifacts in the world. Visitors are invited to tour the museum and visit its gift shop in person and online.

Publisher and Angkor Wat researcher Kent Davis and his wife, Sophaphan, lost everything when their home in Holmes Beach burned down last year. But after finding new housing Davis quickly rediscovered his passion for Cambodia. STAFF PHOTO / E. SKYLAR LITHERLAND

RECOVERY: As life after a fire is rebuilt, passion for Khmer culture is reborn

By VINCENT F. SAFUTO Correspondent – Reprinted with permission Sarasota Herald Tribune – Full credits at bottom.

Book publisher Kent Davis and his wife, Sophaphan, escaped from their burning Holmes Beach house with only the clothes on their backs and a cell phone.

Sophaphan & Kent Davis in front of their home on the morning of April 17th, 2008. The fire began 33 years after the day that Khmer Rouge troops entered Phnom Penh to initiate one of worst genocides in human history.

Lost in the blaze were all their personal possessions, among them a prized library collection of rare Asian books and 20,000 research photos of Angkor Wat, a giant Cambodian religious temple built in the 12th century and rediscovered by French archaeologists in the 19th century.

But Davis and his wife are rebounding from the April 2008 fire, and his passion for Cambodia, its culture and the Angkor Wat temple has found new beginnings as well.

Davis’ first love affair with Southeast Asia and its culture began nearly two decades ago when he worked in Bangkok, Thailand from 1990-95. It was then that he met his wife, Sophaphan, who is Thai.

The fire consumed hundreds of rare first edition books about Southeast Asian history.

His “second love affair” began in 2005 when he and his wife took a side trip to Cambodia during a visit to see her family in Northeastern Thailand. Seeing the ancient Khmer capital of Angkor inspired the Davises to build a school in Cambodia, begin a research project about the role of women in ancient Cambodia, and to begin publishing books about the region. The venture went well, until the fire interrupted all of their plans.

In early 2009, as he and his wife continued their struggle to regain their footing and establish a new home after their fire, Davis experienced interest in his work from an unexpected place and his Cambodian works soon became official state gifts given on behalf of the United States to the King of Cambodia.

King Sihamoni of Cambodia receives official US gifts from Ambassador Rodley.

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This was possible because Davis’ fire-devastated publishing company, DatAsia Press, has resumed producing books about Southeast Asia.

So, when U.S. ambassador to Cambodia Carol Rodley was looking for a gift to present to King Norodom Sihamoni at her formal presentation of diplomatic credentials and gifts in January, she contacted Davis.

“I was looking for a gift that would symbolize the connections between the United States and Cambodia, and ideally for something related to Cambodian culture,” Rodley said in an e-mail.

These two books published by Kent Davis were given to the Cambodian king. STAFF PHOTO / E. SKYLAR LITHERLAND

Davis offered Rodley three gifts from DatAsia: Angkor the Magnificent, an English-language book first published in 1924 that opened up Cambodian tourism to the English speaking world; Earth in Flower, the most complete history of Cambodian dance ever written; and a DVD copy of a rare American documentary about Cambodian dance made in the early 1960s.

Davis worked in Thailand from 1990 to 1995. He wanted to learn the language and joked that he met Sophaphan while looking for people to talk to. He had heard about Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but only as a cool place to visit. In the early 90′s Cambodia was still recovering from the Khmer Rouge era and remained too dangerous to visit in Davis’ view.

Davis and his wife moved back to the US in 1995 and in 2001 moved to his family home in Florida to develop and run a Thai-themed resort on Anna Maria Island. In 2005 they sold the resort and took their first vacation in four years, going  to visit Sophaphan’s family in Thailand. They were looking to go somewhere they had never been before and decided to visit Angkor Wat.

It was a momentous decision.

“From the minute I walked into Angkor Wat, I saw something that just made me ask a question: ‘Why is Angkor Wat, the largest religious structure in the world, filled with the images of women?’” Kent Davis said.

One of 1,780 female portraits at Angkor Wat.

Not men, not warriors, not children. Women.

“I found that to be a question I need to answer in this life.”

There are 1,780 women carved in the temple, and no two are alike, he said.

“Some of them are very elaborate and have royal crowns; some of them are simpler and have simpler hairstyles; they wear strange jewelries; they’re all in specific poses; they’re all in very specific locations.”

“My theory is that these women represent a hierarchy that embodies the complex Khmer culture that created Angkor Wat. Women who, in fact, played a very important role in Cambodia’s history,” said Davis.

Sophaphan Davis was born and grew up in a village near Kalasin, a city in northeastern Thailand about 120 miles directly north of Angkor Wat. Northeastern Thailand was part of the Khmer Empire in the 12th century when the temple was built.

In November, Davis returned to Cambodia, to retake 7,000 pictures at Angkor Wat, beginning anew his research photo collection of the sacred temple.

“I fell in love with Cambodia, too,” Sophaphan said. “The nature, people and lifestyle there remind me of my home when I was a child.”

Cambodia

CAMBODIA FACTS

CAPITAL: Phnom Penh

POPULATION: 14,241,640 (July 2008 estimate)

SIZE: 69,898 square miles, slightly smaller than Oklahoma

ETHNIC GROUPS: Khmer, 90 percent; Vietnamese, 5 percent; Chinese, 1 percent; other, 4 percent

Languages: Khmer (official), 95 percent; French and English

RELIGIONS: Theravada Buddhist, 95 percent; other, 5 percent

GOVERNMENT: Multiparty democracy under constitutional monarch

CHIEF OF STATE: King Norodom Sihamoni (since Oct. 29, 2004)

HEAD OF GOVERNMENT: Prime Minister Hun Sen (since Jan. 14, 1985)

Source: CIA World Factbook

© 2009 Sarasota Herald Tribune - This article and photos appear with the kind permission of the copyright holder. No further reproduction is permitted.

Angkor the Magnificent - Now for Kindle Reader

What links the RMS Titanic and the Cambodian jungle temple of Angkor Wat?

Author Helen Churchill Candee survived the infamous maritime disaster to write Angkor the Magnificent, history’s most captivating account of Southeast Asia’s mysterious Khmer Empire.

Now her evocative tale of Cambodian adventure is available on Kindle at a special discounted price. Download your Kindle copy of “Angkor the Magnificent” instantly here.

King Sihamoni of Cambodia receiving official gifts from newly appointed US Ambassador Carol Rodley, accompanied by Embassy Spokesman and Cultural Attache, John Johnson, and Executive Assistant, LaVonya Hayward.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia (PR WIRE) – Surrounded by crenulated walls and elaborate tropical gardens, Cambodia’s Royal Palace is an exotic world onto itself. Since 1866, this has been the royal abode of this proud nation’s monarchs, whose lineage stretches back to the great Khmer Empire that once ruled most of Southeast Asia.

For nearly 150 years, all important state ceremonies have taken place in the Throne Hall, called Preah Thineang Dheva Vinnichay in Khmer, which means the "Sacred Seat of Judgment."

For nearly 150 years, all important state ceremonies have taken place in the Throne Hall, called Preah Thineang Dheva Vinnichay in Khmer, which means the “Sacred Seat of Judgment.” It was here that King Sihamoni received US Ambassador Carol Rodley, accepting her diplomatic papers and, as protocol dictates, conducting an official exchange of gifts between the two nations. Ambassador Rodley chose her American gifts quite carefully.

Years of foreign service and a true appreciation for Cambodian culture prepared Rodley for her important post. Already a Khmer speaker from an earlier Cambodian assignment in 1997-2000, Rodley began preparing for her royal ceremony weeks in advance. Her research led her to US publisher, Kent Davis, a Khmer history specialist and researcher with Devata.org.

“My books are primarily for Cambodians and academics, so I was curious when a Virginia woman sought out these specialized titles. That woman was Ambassador Rodley,” said Davis.

"Earth in Flower" and "Angkor the Magnificent"

Rodley chose two books and a DVD as official gifts to include in her ceremony: “Earth in Flower” by Dr. Paul Cravath, the most complete history of Cambodian dance ever published; “Angkor the Magnificent” by Helen Churchill Candee, an evocative account of the Khmer Empire; and a rare digital copy of a 1962 film about Cambodian dance featuring the King’s sister, Princess Buppha Devi, from the US National Archives.

Weeks later in the gilded Throne Hall, the newest United States Ambassador presented her credentials to King Sihamoni in his native language and wearing a Khmer silk business suit. Presentation of her diplomatic credentials was soon followed by the uniquely American gifts of Cambodian scholarship, which delighted her royal host.

The Ambassador’s actions and her gifts embody American appreciation and respect for Cambodian culture. With diplomatic empathy like this, I believe the United States can regain its reputation as a world leader known for sharing knowledge, culture and freedom. I’m honored my books were part of this event,” said Davis.

Website: www.DatAsia.us

Contact: Kent Davis kdavis@DatAsia.us Direct line 941-778-3086 (FL, USA)

Publisher: DatASIA, Inc. is a US publisher affiliated with the Independent Book Publishers Association, and Small Publishers Association of North America. The company has offices in Florida, USA and Bangkok, Thailand. www.DatAsia.us

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By Rick Catlin – The Islander Feb 10, 2009

Holmes Beach resident Kent Davis could have been forgiven if he had given up his dreams of publishing books on Asian history, supporting a Cambodian school, and decoding the mystery of the 1,780 female statues at Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia.

Sophaphan & Kent Davis in front of their destroyed home on the morning of April 17th, 2008. Davis' research focuses on Cambodia. Coincidentally, the fire struck on the same day the Khmer Rouge genocide began in Phnom Penh in 1975.

Davis and his wife “Pa,” a native of Thailand, were lucky to be alive after an April 17, 2008, house fire destroyed their Holmes Beach home.

Also lost in the blaze were more than 20,000 research pictures Davis had taken of the famous Cambodian temple complex, along with his priceless collection of some 2,000 books and documents on Southeast Asia, including many rare and first edition volumes. The research materials and book collection were not covered by insurance.

When the fire broke out, Davis was preparing to republish “Angkor the Magnificent,” a 1924 book written by Titanic survivor and American socialite Helen Churchill Candee. Candee’s tale of Asian adventure was heralded then as one of the most provocative descriptions of the lost Khmer civilization, and her book is credited with opening Cambodia to American and English tourism prior to the outbreak of World War II.

Angkor the Magnificent

The fire, however, destroyed Davis’ original editions of the book, his working manuscripts and original research photos.

But Davis does not give up easily.

After working diligently throughout the year, Davis finally completed his revisions of the book and in November received the first copies of his new expanded edition of “Angkor the Magnificent.”

The next day, he flew to Cambodia to donate copies of the book to libraries, spend two weeks retaking 7,000 photos of Khmer temples and visiting research libraries to replace documentation lost in the fire.

Davis also arranged to send textbooks and clothes to the Srei Devata Middle School that he and his wife built with proceeds they earned from the 2005 sale of the Siam Garden Resort in Anna Maria.

Kent and Sophaphan Davis at the opening ceremonies of Srei Devata Middle School in the village of Bak Sna, Kampong Thom, Cambodia.

Now back in Holmes Beach, Davis plans to continue his three-year research project investigating the significance of the 1,780 female statues at Angkor Wat, each distinctly different from another. The stone images, carved between 1120 A.D. and 1150 A.D., might represent a single generation of Khmer royal women, the ancestors of modern Cambodians. This could make them the largest collection of ancient portraits on earth, with the exception of the Terra Cotta Army in China which is entirely composed of men.

Davis is hoping his research will unlock the mystery of the identity of the women.

He plans to publish the first phase of his research later this year in a book entitled “Daughters of Angkor Wat.”

“The Khmer civilization was one of the most advanced on Earth, but, in modern times, the Cambodian people have been decimated by colonial subjugation, war and the recent genocide of the communist Khmer Rouge regime,” Davis said. “My mission is to help restore education and the legacy of history in their country.”

In March 2008, Davis completed his first publication on southeast Asia, “Earth in Flower,” which documents the history of Cambodia’s sacred dance tradition.

When the Khmer Rouge and dictator Pol Pot came to power in the 1970′s, more that 90 percent of the country’s dancers and an estimated 1.5 million people died in the communist genocide of the population, made famous in the movie “The Killing Fields.”

Davis's charred office that contained his original research papers and rarest books.

Following his fire and destruction at his home, Davis pledged to continue his literary efforts, even if he had to start again with just his few remaining notes and drawings.

Davis kept that promise.

“The house fire and possessions lost did not define me. That’s not who I am,” he said.

“These are all transient things. Pa is from Thailand and we lived in Southeast Asia for many years. The Buddhist mentality there is that material things are worth nothing. What you do with your life is worth something.”

“Completing these books and continuing our efforts to support the school is fulfilling something in our lives. These are not things that the fire could destroy.”

All of Davis’ projects and links to related websites can be found at www.Devata.org. Both “Earth in Flower,” and “Angkor the Magnificent” are available from Internet bookseller Amazon.com, Davis said.

Siem Reap, Cambodia – Balanced precariously atop a metal scaffold 20 stories above the Cambodian jungle, publisher Kent Davis unveiled Angkor the Magnificent (ISBN: 978-1-934431-00-9), an expanded edition of Helen Churchill Candee’s 1924 Asian travel classic featuring the first published biography of the 20th century adventuress.

Titanic Unveiling at Angkor Wat

“It’s astounding to think of ancient Khmer stone masons experiencing this view 1,000 years ago. This is the type of travel adventure Helen Churchill Candee lived for…her spirit is certainly here today!” said Davis at the top of the temple’s central tower on a temporary metal framework erected for restoration of the complex pinecone-shaped structure.

Davis held the ceremony at Angkor Wat before donating copies of the book to Cambodia’s key libraries including the Biblioteque Nationale, the Center for Khmer Studies, the Khmer Arts Academy and L’Ecole D’Extreme Orient.

“Angkor Wat is one of the most magical places on earth. Candee’s travelogue vividly portrays an Angkor of yesteryear for those looking for insights into these truly magnificent Cambodian ruins” comments Yale archeology professor Dr. Dougald O’Reilly who founded Heritage Watch to preserve Cambodia’s heritage.

This historic release marks the first time in 85 years that readers can enjoy Candee’s evocative descriptions of Asian adventure travel in the land of the lost Khmer civilization. Today, Helen Candee is still the perfect guide to bring the temples to life…for visitors experiencing these wonders in person or from their reading chairs. Angkor the Magnificent (ISBN: 978-1-934431-00-9) is available on Amazon.com in the US and Europe.

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> DatAsia press publishes books focusing on Cambodia and Southeast Asian history. As a researcher with Devata.org, Kent Davis works to document the importance of women in Asian history and to decode the meaning of the 1,780 apsara (female goddess) portrait carvings found Angkor Wat.

> Dr. Dougald O’Reilly is an author, archaeologist and Yale University professor specializing in prehistoric Southeast Asia. He is committed to preserving Cambodia’s cultural heritage and founded Heritage Watch (www.heritagewatch.org), a non-profit organization working to preserve cultural icons and stop antiquity theft in Cambodia.

Holmes Beach, FL – April 10, 2008 — “The tale of it is incredible; the wonder which is Angkor is unmatched in Asia.” So begins Helen Churchill Candee’s 1924 tale of Asian adventure. Today, visitors can again experience the mystery of Cambodia’s vast jungle temples through her eyes in a modern expanded edition of Angkor the Magnificent (ISBN: 978-1-934431-00-9) now on sale as Amazon.com.

April 15th, 2008 marked the 96th anniversary of history’s most infamous maritime disaster, the sinking of the RMS Titanic. But for Helen Candee, surviving the Titanic was a minor event compared to her other life credentials, which include authoring one of the most popular early accounts of travel to exotic Cambodia, Angkor Wat, and the temples of the ancient Khmers.

Helen Candee walked with kings, presidents, the wealthy and the powerful… entertaining, educating and influencing them. This independent woman supported herself and her family in an era when women were expected to depend on men. She championed feminine equality and fought tirelessly for woman’s rights. And, as a single woman, she traveled the Far East with a keen eye for detail, an inquisitive mind, and a sensitivity for local culture.

Angkor the Magnificent is far more than a tale of early 20th century Asian travel. Candee’s insights are enlightening, elegant and frequently witty as she relates the history, culture and context of Angkor’s ancient monuments. By her hand, we have one of the first significant works on Cambodia in the English language.

Historian Randy Bryan Bigham prefaces this edition with Life’s Décor, the first original biography of Candee ever to appear in print. Bigham relates “Surviving the RMS Titanic was just a random event in Helen Churchill Candee’s extraordinary life. She was a most unconventional Victorian woman.” Bigham’s detailed biography recounts her accomplishments as an author, Orientalist, designer, trendsetter, political insider and lifelong advocate for women’s rights.

The 2008 hardcover edition of Angkor the Magnificent (ISBN: 978-1-934431-00-9) includes Helen Candee’s biography; her complete 1924 account of Southeast Asian travel; more than 120 illustrations of Cambodia, RMS Titanic and the author; Candee’s first person account of the Titanic disaster; a bibliography and index.

As Helen Candee herself described this tale, “…the news is leaking out to the great world that loves a new sensation that there are secrets to be pried open in Cambodia, and special marvels to be seen….” Nearly 90 years later, this amazing woman’s Oriental insights are as stimulating and relevant as the day she wrote them.

Biographer: Randy Bryan Bigham is a journalist, author and historian specializing in Edwardian era cultural history. He has worked with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of London; the Titanic Museum; and the National Geographic Channel. Bigham is now editor for a Metroplex newspaper in Dallas, Texas.

Publisher: DatASIA, Inc. is an independent publisher affiliated with PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association and SPAN, Small Publishers of North America. The company has offices in Florida, USA and Bangkok, Thailand.