Books published by Orchid Press Publishing Limited

In 1914, the British plant-collector and explorer, Kingdon-Ward, undertook an expedition of some eight month's duration along Burma's eastern frontier and across the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River. Kingdon-Ward's travel was mostly on foot, through some of the most rugged and impenetrable terrain on earth; his legendary courage and endurance enabled him to prevail, despite significantimpact on his health. Kingdon-Ward's keen powers of observation result in an account rich in the details of this previously unknown territory, its flora, fauna and the anthropology of its tribal inhabitants. While primarily a scientific expedition, Kingdon-Ward's descriptions are, at times, lyrical as he described the majestic landscape through which he travelled. First published in 1921 and previously long out of print, this work has been one of Kingdon-Ward's scarcest and most sought-after titles.

Classical Tibetan, with origins dating to the ninth century, is the script found in a huge corpus of surviving Tibetan texts, mostly of Buddhist content; native Tibetans still employ this language, to this day when writing on religious, medical or historical subjects. The aim of this book is to provide a rapid introduction to the main elements of Classical Tibetan, so that students may begin to access for themselves the vast amount of written material available in this language. While designed for guided study, the material will also be of use to those who tackle the language on their own. Regular study over approximately six months should result in an understanding of most grammatical features and allow the student to read the simpler prose texts.

The artist Sappho Marchal was the daughter of the renowned French conservator of Angkor, Henri Marchal. She spent the early years of her life in Cambodia, surrounded by the magnificent ruins of the Khmers, and produced the present study at age 23. Her fine line drawings present the myriad details of ornament and costume depicted on the stone reliefs of Angkor Wat with a clarity that could not be captured, even then, on film. Since that time, many of the stone carvings have severely deteriorated, rendering Marchal's drawings all the more valuable as a record for present-day students and restorers of Angkor.

This is a story of life among the minority tribesmen of Vietnam who were trained by the author during the Vietnam War to become the feared and respected "Tiger Men", defending their villages and homes against the Viet-Cong.

This study of the development of architecture and the impact of architectural models on this evolution, draws its early examples primarily from surviving Hindu-Buddhist monuments in Cambodia and Java.