author
Lady Margaret Brooke
1849–1936
A Victorian-born writer who became the Ranee of Sarawak, she turned an extraordinary life in Borneo into vivid memoir. Her work offers readers a rare first-hand glimpse of court life, travel, and colonial-era Sarawak.
1 Audiobook
My life in Sarawak
by Lady Margaret Brooke
About the author
Born Margaret Alice Lili de Windt in 1849, Lady Margaret Brooke became the wife of Charles Brooke, the second White Rajah of Sarawak, and was known as the Ranee of Sarawak. Her life placed her between British society and the very different world of the Brooke court in Kuching, an experience that later gave her writing its distinctive perspective.
She is best known for My Life in Sarawak (1913), a memoir remembered for its first-hand account of life at the Astana and of Sarawak in the late 19th century. She also published later work including Good Morning and Good Night (1934), drawing on a long life that had already become the subject of public fascination.
For audiobook listeners, her appeal lies in that unusual combination of personal memory, travel writing, and social history. Her books preserve the voice of someone who witnessed a little-known royal household and wrote about it in a way that still feels immediate and human.