Following clues in Charlotte Bronte's original novel, A Marble Column is set in the years before imperial attitudes fully hardened. Preoccupied with their own desires and benevolent intentions, the English characters are so steeped in the habits of their kind that they can no more see the consequences of their actions than the near-blind Rochester.

Cicely Havely was born in Yorkshire. After completing degrees in English at Oxford, she joined the Open University, where her writing and broadcasts ranged from the medieval to the post-colonial. She has also lived in the USA, and for over 30 years has travelled extensively in India and Southeast Asia.