The Jewel in the Crown is a 1966 novel by Paul Scott that begins his Raj Quartet. The four-volume novel sequence of the Quartet is set during the final days of the British Raj in India during the Second World War. The novel is written in the form of interviews and reports of conversations or research and other portions are in the form of letters (epistolary form) or diary entries. The novel focuses on the triangle of an English woman, an Indian man, and a British police superintendent, setting up the events of subsequent novels in the series. It is considered Scott's "major work." The title itself, which is also an expression for something most valuable, refers to the fact that India was considered to be the most valuable possession of the British Empire. The plot has direct similarities to the novel A Passage to India by E.M. Forster published in 1924.