Staying On cover art

Staying On

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Staying On

By: Paul Scott
Narrated by: Paul Shelley
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days. Both funny and deeply moving, 'Staying On' is a unique, engrossing portrait of the end of an empire and of a forty-year love affair.

©1977 Paul Scott (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Witty

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Jewel in the Crown cover art
The Raj Quartet: The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, The Towers of Silence & A Division of the Spoils cover art
An Imaginative Experience cover art
The Friendly Air cover art
The Penelopiad cover art
A Closed Eye cover art
Hotel du Lac cover art
Paradise Postponed cover art
A Strangeness in My Mind cover art
The Great Fortune cover art
The Lark Shall Sing cover art
Cider with Rosie cover art
A Prayer for Owen Meany cover art
The Four Last Things cover art
One Across, Two Down cover art
The Power of One cover art
All stars
Most relevant
It was such a poignant book and beautifully written. I don't know why it's taken me so long to discover Paul Scott. He must rank amongst the best English writers.

wonderful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a marvellous work- funny and poignant. The reading is of a very high standard. Thoroughly recommended.

Excellent story, excellently read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully written and beautifully read.
A slow-burn largely domestic narrative, in a liminal historical context, that leads to a heart-breaking final scene.
Quality work by a gifted writer.

Quality Literature

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One of my favourite short novels.
A feel good, contemplative, humorous little tale of the sadness of later life relationships in the old British ex pat communities set against a reflection of the old days, good and bad.

Set in 1970's modern india with tinges of nostalgia for the days of the Raj although very little description of that era.
Here we see the slightly unfavorable petty bureaucracy and petty ruthless behaviour of the old British rulers, now passed on & imitated by new (if somewhat questionably sourced) monied Indians.
Marvelously commented on by the lower class servants who are treated no better by their own people and they too have nostalgia for the old days.

Wonderful witty narration too.

The ITV series is equally good.

But where are the full Raj Quartet Audible?
Only the Jewel in the crown is available.

An old favourite, beautiful, funny, sad, too short

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The juxtaposition of the various characters amidst the post Raj era was interesting although it took me a while to become involved with the story.

Interesting story set in post Raj India

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews