Her Lotus Year: Shanghai’s Response to the Abdication

Posted: August 4th, 2025 | No Comments »

Twelve years after her sojourn in Shanghai Wallis married King Edward VIII forcing the abdication and became Duchess. Did anyone in Shanghai care? Well George M Battey (a slight case of nominative determinism i fear) did. He was a New York-Shanghailander muckraker & lover of scandal who self-published pamphlets in Shanghai, mostly about US politics and Shanghai goings-on, but he couldn’t resist Wallis – this from Jan 1937, a special on the abdication. He also refers to one of his pet-peeves, “bamboo Americans” – by which I think he means Americans who have lived in Shanghai too long and whose attitudes about China have become overly influenced by the British.

Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson is available everywhere in hardback, e-book and audiobook now…

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