The Tailor's Needle (2009) is the debut novel of Indian writer Lakshmi Raj Sharma, who is a professor in the Department of English, University of Allahabad. It was first published in the UK in 2009 (ISBN 0956037046) by Picnic Publishing Limited, UK and then by Penguin Books India (2012; ISBN 9780143416760). It is a Raj novel covering the era from 1917 to the 1940s and ends a little before India gets its independence. The characters are Indians and Brits, including a fictional British Viceroy of India. Sir Saraswati is educated at Cambridge and employed with the Maharaja of Kashinagar. He must leave Kashinagar and settle down in Mirzapur after a debauchee Maharaja gets enthroned. The Viceroy and Sir Saraswati have a battle of wits and diplomacy. His wife and three children, and their proble