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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Amazon’s newest Kindle is the best ebook-reading device on the market. It’s better than the Apple iPad, the Barnes & Noble Nook, the various Sony readers…” - Fast Company

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What’s clear, however, is that if you’re looking for a standalone e-reader (i.e., a portable replacement for physical books), this is the go-to, standard-setting device.” - Engadget

Its solid build quality, along with its improved design, integrated store, and cross-platform transportability… all add up to a winner that shoots to the head of the pack.” - PC World

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.

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.

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.

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.