My Lotus Year – Wallis Warfield Spencer’s China time….

I’ve been working on scripts, longreads & audio projects for a while. But now it’s time to get back to books. Been wanting to do the little known story of Wallis Simpson’s ‘Lotus Year’ in China (1924/25) for ages & now it’s happening thanks to Aitken Alexander Associates & St Martins Press…From Publishers Marketplace…

Literary Cosmopolitanism in the English Fin de Siècle

Stefano Evangelista’s Literary Cosmopolitanism in the English Fin de Siècle looks interesting and, for those with Asian-related interests, has a good chapter on Lafcadio Hearn. Of course it was the cover image that caught my eye – Japonisme…In this case the Norwegian painter Oda Krohg’s (1860-1935) A Japanese Lantern (1886) held by the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo.

The fin de siècle witnessed an extensive and heated debate about cosmopolitanism, which transformed readers’ attitudes towards national identity, foreign literatures, translation, and the idea of world literature. Focussing on literature written in English, Literary Cosmopolitanism in the English Fin de Siècle offers a critical examination of cosmopolitanism as a distinctive feature of the literary modernity of this important period of transition. No longer conceived purely as an abstract philosophical ideal, cosmopolitanism—or world citizenship—informed the actual, living practices of authors and readers who sought new ways of relating local and global identities in an increasingly interconnected world. The book presents literary cosmopolitanism as a field of debate and controversy. While some writers and readers embraced the creative, imaginative, emotional, and political potentials of world citizenship, hostile critics denounced it as a politically and morally suspect ideal, and stressed instead the responsibilities of literature towards the nation. In this age of empire and rising nationalism, world citizenship came to enshrine a paradox: it simultaneously connoted positions of privilege and marginality, connectivity and non-belonging.

Chapters on Oscar Wilde, Lafcadio Hearn, George Egerton, the periodical press, and artificial languages bring to light the variety of literary responses to the idea of world citizenship that proliferated at the turn of the twentieth century. The book interrogates cosmopolitanism as a liberal ideology that celebrates human diversity and as a social identity linked to worldliness; it investigates its effect on gender, ethics, and the emotions. It presents the literature of the fin de siècle as a dynamic space of exchange and mediation, and argues that our own approach to literary studies should become less national in focus.

“Millionka” – Vladivostok’s Lost Chinatown – My Piece in the South China Morning Post….

The lost Chinatown of Millionka is a place I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time…finally got thr chance in the South China Morning Post weekend magazine – click here to read…

Mapping the Great Game: Explorers, Spies and Maps in 19th-Century Asia

Riaz Dean’s Mapping the Great Game….

In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires were engaged in bitter rivalry for the acquisition of Southern Asian. Although India was the ultimate prize, most of the intrigue and action took place along its northern frontier in Afghanistan, Turkestan and Tibet. Mapping the region and gaining knowledge of the enemy were crucial to the interests of both sides.

The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India began in the 18th century with the aim of creating a detailed map of the subcontinent. Under the leadership of George Everest—whose name was later bestowed to the world’s tallest mountain—the it mapped the Great Arc running from the country’s southern tip to the Himalayas. Much of the work was done by Indian explorers known as Pundits. They were the first to reveal the mysteries of the forbidden city of Lhasa, and discover the true course of Tibet’s mighty Tsangpo River.

These explorers performed essential information gathering for the British Empire and filled in large portions of the map of Asia. Their adventurous exploits are vividly recounted in Mapping the Great Game.

Endlessly, endlessly down the river they drifted, toward Shanghai…

A melancholy opening line of a chapter from Frederic Prokosch’s curious and rather forgotten 1937 novel of Turkestan, Kashgar, exile and China, The Seven Who Fled…

Eight Hundred Heroes: China’s Lost Battalion and the Fall of Shanghai

I guess the recent Chinese movie The Eight Hundred raised awareness of the Nationalist army’s battle of Sihang Warehouse in 1937 Shanghai and perhaps partly prompted this book by Stephen Robinson, which i was asked to blurb: Here’s a link to the book and below my blurb….and I also note Guan Hu’s movie is available to rent on amazon…

The story of the 1937 battle of Sihang Warehouse, the resistance against the Japanese onslaught of Shanghai, and the heroism of the 800 Chinese soldiers who fought to the bitter end is one of the great stories of bravery in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Yet it is so little acknowledged outside China. Stephen Robinson’s highly readable history of the event is both comprehensive and concise, detailed yet placing this definitive event within the broader history of wartime China. ― Paul French, author of City of Devils and Destination Shanghai

Kelly & Walsh Logo, 1915

Here a nice logo from the fantastic Shanghai publishers of old Kelly & Walsh – 1915…

TL Mogford’s The Plant Hunter – Up the Victorian Yangtze Looking for a Fabled Plant

Should you be looking for an escapist read with some China history thrown in…TL Mogford’s The Plant Hunter might do the job…

1867. King’s Road, Chelsea, is a sea of plant nurseries, catering to the Victorian obsession with rare and exotic flora. But each of the glossy emporiums is fuelled by the dangerous world of the plant hunters – daring adventurers sent into uncharted lands in search of untold wonders to grace England’s finest gardens.

Harry Compton is as far from a plant hunter as one could imagine – a salesman plucked from the obscurity of the nursery growing fields to become ‘the face that sold a thousand plants’.

But one small act of kindness sees him inherit a precious gift – a specimen of a fabled tree last heard of in The Travels of Marco Polo, and a map.

Seizing his chance for fame and fortune, Harry sets out to make his mark. But where there is wealth there is corruption, and soon Harry is fleeing England, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and sailing up the Yangtze alongside a young widow – both in pursuit of the plant that could transform both their lives forever.