HUSSEIN tells the story of a young mahout - or elephant handler - his childhood and life in India and his relationship and adventures with elephants. Patrick was in his early twenties when he wrote it. First published in 1938 Hussein: An Entertainment is a marvellously readable adventure story set in India. Reviewers in the United States were particularly enthusiastic: the New York Times compared Hussein favourably to Kipling's Kim, calling it 'a gorgeous entertainment'. Thomas Sugrue wrote in the New York Herald Tribune: 'The story of Hussein is a swift-moving, well-written account of events so fantastic that moonshine was certainly their mother.Hussein, in quest after his Sashiya, is a hero as alive and as human as Tom Jones seeking his Sophia.'