Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore

As the Hague Ordains: A Novel of Japan at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore

A story of love and triumph over adversity

The author of this novel wrote just one work of fiction. She was, however, a remarkable and highly creative person in other ways. An American, she was highly regarded as a writer, photographer and geographer. Widely travelled, she became the first woman board member of the National Geographic Society. Eliza Scidmore was fortunate in that her brother was a career diplomat operating principally in the Far East. She often accompanied him on his travels and this gave her access to regions that would have been very difficult for ordinary travellers to reach. She was an enthusiastic writer and books on Alaska, Japan, China, Java and India followed in rapid succession. This novel, 'As the Hague Ordains,' written in 1907, is set in Japan in the period of the Russo-Japanese War which was fought from 1904-5 and which came about as a consequence of the imperial ambitions of both Russia and Japan as they collided over the dominance of Korea and Manchuria. It tells of the adventures of the wife of a wounded Russian prisoner, Vladimir, who was captured while on a scouting patrol with his Cossacks. Unable to bear their separation she journeys to be at his side in the prisoners' hospital at Matsuyama.
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