Shanghai Demimondaine – The Origins of Emily Hahn’s Miss Jill

Nick Hordern in the Australian Financial Review on his new book Shanghai Demimondaine (Earnshaw Books) about Lorraine Murray, the real life inspo for Emily Hahn’s novel of Shanghai courtesan, Miss Jill (1948). Heads up: i’ll be talking to Nick about the book on a Royal Asiatic Society Beijing zoom on Nov 1….

Shanghai in 1930s had a booming prostitution industry which gave the city a certain reputation across Asia, and the beautiful Australian Lorraine Murray was one of its stars – until her patron Edmund Toeg convinced her to leave the high class brothel where she worked. Against the backdrop of the Japanese onslaught on China, and guided by the American author Emily Hahn – the ‘China Coast Correspondent for the New Yorker’ – Lorraine finally put her time as a prostitute behind her. After a stint in wartime Australia as a counter-intelligence informant, Lorraine moved to England, where she was reunited with both Emily and Edmund. Shanghai Demimondaine is the story of how her friendship with Emily helped Lorraine turn her life around – and how the feisty writer mined their friendship for her bestselling books.