Shamus A’Rabbitt – ‘The poet laureate of the China Treaty Ports’

Years ago I came across a very dog eared and tattered copy of Shamus A’Rabbitt’s China Coast Ballads. At the time I was most thrilled by the illustrations throughout the slim volume that were done by the great White Russian cartoonist in Shanghai Sapajou. But the poetry itself was a wonderful looksee on old Shanghailander society – China Coast pidgin English mixed with English slang, the odd Americanism and the slang of old Shanghai.

Shamus A’Rabbitt, and who exactly he was I admit I’m not sure, was dubbed ‘The poet laureate of the China Treaty Ports’ and his ballads appeared in China coast newspapers and in locally published volumes throughout the 1930s. He (and I’m assuming here it was actually a ‘he’ but can’t be 100% sure) cast a ribald eye over the pompous taipans, the drunk and whoring sailors, the stuck up and self-important Shanghailanders and the hard working Chinese who had the bad luck to have to work for them! And now he’s back in print, thanks to Earnshaw Books, and with the original Sapajou cartoons too. In fact I believe it was my battered and torn first edition of China Coast Ballads that provided the version scanned and reprinted here. Good to see them backing print.