{{short description|British novelist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}} {{Use British English|date=January 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Alice Perrin | image = Alice Perrin (The Bookman, 1906).jpg | caption = in 1906 | birth_name = Alice Robinson | birth_date = 15 July 1867 | birth_place = [[Mussoorie]], [[North-Western Provinces]], [[British Raj]] | death_date = 13 February 1934 | death_place = [[Vaud]], Switzerland | death_cause = | other_names = | known_for = Novels and ghost stories | education = | employer = | occupation = Writer | spouse = Charles Perrin | children = 1 | parents = | relatives = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} '''Alice Perrin''' or '''Alice Robinson''' (15 July 1867 – 13 February 1934) was a British novelist who wrote about the British in colonial India. She became successful after the publication of her short ghost story collection ''East of Suez''.
==Life== Perrin was born in the hill station of [[Mussoorie]] in Anglo-India in 1867. Her parents were Bertha and her second husband John Innes Robinson.<ref name=o2015/> Her father would become a Major General in the Bengal Cavalry.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/f04411ce-9be4-48b2-b4cf-5ca368b8f23c|title=The Discovery Service|last=Archives|first=The National|website=discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk|language=en-GB|access-date=2018-10-15}}</ref> and her great grandfather, [[Sir George Robinson, 1st Baronet]] had been a director of the [[East India Company]]. She was sent to England where she went to school and when she returned she married an engineer named Charles Perrin on 26 May 1886 in Dehra. Once married and after the birth of their only child she took to writing to relieve the boredom of life in India for a British woman.<ref name="o2015"/> She published a short story titled ''Caulfield's Crime'' in the 1892 Belgravia Annual.<ref name="Perrin2011"/> [[File:Beynon of the Irrigation departme never been in love by Alice Perrin illustrated by Harold Coppins.jpg|thumb|"Never Been in Love" illustration by [[Harold Copping]] for "Beynon of the Irrigation Department" ([[The Windsor Magazine|Windsor Magazine]] in 1896)<ref name="Perrin2011"/>]] Her debut books were ''Into Temptation'' and ''Late in Life'' which were both two volume novels and published in 1894 and 1896.<ref name="o2015">{{Cite ODNB|title=Perrin [née Robinson], Alice (1867–1934), novelist {{!}} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/101279|isbn=9780198614111|year=2004}}</ref> She would eventually publish seventeen novels.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.victoriansecrets.co.uk/authors/alice-perrin-1867-1934/|title=Alice Perrin (1867-1934) - Victorian Secrets|work=Victorian Secrets|access-date=2018-10-15|language=en-US}}</ref>
Her writing became popular after the first of her collections of short ghost stories was published. ''East of Suez'' sold well and her writing was compared to Rudyard Kipling where in places [[Punch (magazine)|Punch]] considered her writing better.<ref name=o2015/>
Perrin wrote about the missionaries in India and she was not enthusiastic about them. The History of British India considers three books significant on missionaries to India. These were ''The Old Missionary'' by [[William Wilson Hunter]], ''The Hosts of the Lord'' (1900) by [[Flora Annie Steel]] and Perrin's 1909 book ''Idolatry''.<ref name="Riddick2006">{{cite book|author=John F. Riddick|title=The History of British India: A Chronology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Es6x4u_g19UC&pg=PA179|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-32280-8|pages=179}}</ref>
Perrin and her husband moved to Switzerland in 1925 and three years later her only child died in London. She died in [[Vaud]] in 1934.<ref name=o2015/>
==Selected works== [[File:Woman in bazaar by Alice Perrin illustrated by J Dewar Mills.jpg|thumb|Woman in bazaar - illustrated by J Dewar Mills in 1914]] *''Into Temptation'' (1894) *''Late in Life'' (1896) *''East of Suez'' (1901) - anthology of short stories<ref name="Perrin2011">{{cite book|author=Alice Perrin|title=East of Suez|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hpmHATQFx6AC&pg=PA30|year=2011|publisher=Victorian Secrets|isbn=978-1-906469-18-4|page=30}}</ref> *''The Spell of the Jungle'' (1902) *''Idolatory'' (1909) *''The Anglo-Indians'' (1912) *''The Happy Hunting Ground'' (1914) *''Woman in Bazaar'' (1914) *''Star of India'' (1919) *''Government House'' (1925) *''Rough Passages'' (1926), collection of 10 short stories
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * {{Gutenberg author|id=47346}} * {{FadedPage|id=Perrin, Alice|name=Alice Perrin|author=yes}} * [https://melissaedmundson.com/alice-perrin/ Alice Perrin by Melissa Edmundson] *{{Librivox author |id=11846}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perrin, Alice}} [[Category:1867 births]] [[Category:1934 deaths]] [[Category:British ghost story writers]] [[Category:People from Mussoorie]] [[Category:19th-century British novelists]] [[Category:20th-century British novelists]] [[Category:20th-century British women novelists]] [[Category:19th-century British women writers]] [[Category:Writers from British India]] [[Category:British people in British India]]