Scottish Mandarin: The Life and Times of Sir Reginald Johnston
Posted: October 27th, 2012 | No Comments »Johnston of course deserves a biography and perhaps who better to Scottish Mandarin than Shiona Airlie who previously bio-ed James Stewart Lockhart, his contemporary and friend in China. As regular readers know I don’t review on this blog (get paid to elsewhere so can’t shoot the cook!) but details as ever below…the book is here on Amazon and
“Sir Reginald Johnston—colonial official, scholar, emperor’s tutor—is one of the best known, but also the best hidden of personalities in the history of Anglo-Chinese relations. Now Shiona Airlie, who knows his world intimately, has given us a fascinating and comprehensive biography of this complex and enigmatic man.” — Robert Bickers, author of Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai and The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832–1914  Â
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-Â Sir Reginald Johnston (1874-1938)Â was a colonial administrator, writer, explorer, Buddhist, sinologist, and friend to China’s last emperor, Puyi.
– Tells the life of a complex and sensitive character whose career made a deep impression on 20th-century China.
-Â A major comprehensive and accurate account of the relationship between Johnston and Puyi.Â
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Shiona Airlie is the author of Thistle and Bamboo: The Life and Times of Sir James Stewart Lockhart .
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