Bringing them Home РD̩cadence Mandchoue: The China Memoirs of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse

Earnshaw Books and Derek Sandhaus have done an amazing job bringing us a new translation and interpretation of Backhouse’s scurrilous and filthy memoir Decadence Mandchoue – I’ll write more on the book soon when time allows. However, if in Peking this week you really need to get along to the launch of the book and get the inside story on all this – Decadence Mandchoue is perhaps quite the maddest book on  China ever written by a foreigner…and well worth reading (well, the sane are generally a bit of a bore).

Wednesday 13 April

Beijing Bookworm
Booklaunch of

Décadence Mandchoue: The China Memoirs of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse

7.30pm

20/30rmb

Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse (1873-1944), Baronet, arrived in Peking in 1898 and quickly became the city’s most respected translator, working for both the British Foreign Service and London Times correspondent George Morrison. Considered a brilliant linguist and Chinese scholar in his day, his diaries have been the subject of great controversy due to their illicit and salacious depictions of imperial life.  Backhouse’s reputation was posthumously tarnished when it was alleged that much of his work was based upon forged documents. Join us to hear Derek Sandhaus shed light on Backhouse’s fascinating writings and life.