All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French
In Beijing recently digging around archives and with one of the very few original and personally signed photographs of Puyi from a private collection while finishing my new forthcoming book, The Last Emperor of China (Elliot & Thompson – 27/8/26)….
James Birch’s Gilbert and George and the Communists (Cheerio Publishing), which fascinatingly recounts the duos 1990s trip to Shanghai and Beijing (as well as Moscow), is now out in paperback. I also wrote about those amazing & groundbreaking exhibitions, and the impetus it gave China’s performance artists to push ahead, for the SCMP – https://amp.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3295898/when-brit-art-world-provocateurs-gilbert-george-went-china
One last post of Bussiere Garden – to see all the other just put “Bussiere” in the blog search engine….
The Bussiere Garden complex in Beijing’s Western Hills is a combination of Chinese and Western elements in three parts: the barbican tower, and then the northern wing and the southern wing villas (for Bussiere and his wife and the other for their tubercular daughter who needed the cleaner air of the Western Hills).
The barbican (a fortified outpost, tower, or gated structure built to protect a property) is perhaps the strangest part of the property’s architectural mix. A western style castle of stone and granite with three floors and facing toward the east. Quite what Dr Bussiere used the barbican for is not clear – presumably for views across the valley to Haidian and the nearby valleys of the Western Hills. It is not needed for defence or was ever used as accommodation and appears to have been purely an architectural folly on Bussiere’s land.
Here it is under construction c.1923 when it seems to have been the first stricture to be tackled, shortly after completion of the tower and main villa and then today….
So here it is… my new book, The Last Emperor, out this August – a retelling with many new sources of the story of Puyi, Wanrong, their tutors and the last days of the Forbidden City…
Introducing the forthcoming UK edition of The Last Emperor of China: Twilight of the Forbidden City (Elliot and Thompson) – out this August 27th in the UK, Ireland and a few other places you guys might buy books such as Hong Kong. As usual the book’s in hardback and available as a e-book or audio-book too. There’s plenty of maps and photos of course… see the book blurb below…
You may think you know the story of the last emperor, seen the Bertolucci movie, done the tour… but there’s now so much more to know from newly unearthed archives – diaries, letters and photographs – in the US, UK and China that shed major new light on this old tale – the lives of Puyi and Wanrong as well as their tutors Reginald Johnston and the previously massively overlooked Isabel Ingram… these new sources reveal so much about the last days of imperial life in the Forbidden City…
PS: There will be a US edition along a little later in November, so fear not. For more details on that and pre-ordering links click here
Step into the otherworldly splendour of the Forbidden City, its red walls and golden rooftops shimmering at the heart of Peking…
In the early 1920s, China’s boy ruler Puyi and his child bride Wanrong were sequestered within the ancient citadel: a city-within-a-city, a haven prohibited to all except the imperial family and its scheming courtiers, fawning servants and corrupt eunuchs. An emperor without an empire, Puyi did not know from one day to the next whether he would experience restoration or assassination. Two years later, the couple was expelled into eternal exile, bringing an end to the centuries-old Manchu dynasty.
This extraordinary scenario has captivated us for generations – but we have not known the full story. Now, bestselling historian Paul French draws upon previously unpublished sources, including memoirs, diaries and letters, to take us deep inside the hidden world of Puyi and Wanrong and the cast of colourful characters that surrounded them. In this crucial period decisions of great consequence were made that would determine the future of the royal couple – and of China.
What emerges is a sweeping tale of tradition and revolution, of duty and intrigue – and a young married couple facing a hostile world. It is a mesmerising portrait of a dying regime: the final days of Imperial China as they have never been seen before.
Pre-orders are of course a massive help to any author and have a real impact ensuring shops and online retailers really get behind a book and author. So if you’re able to pre-order please do with any of the major UK book retailers below, or get your local indie store to order it in as soon as possible….
I’ll post a list of launch events around the UK later in the year – Edinburgh and London for sure – and if anyone out there wants me to come and talk about the book at your bookshop, university of organisation, well here I am!
Reginald Hedgeland (1874-1967) was a Chinese Maritime Customs Commissioner (with his archive at SOAS in London). He joined the CMCS in 1898, after Oxford. He retired in 1930 having worked in Hoihow [Haikou], Nanking [Nanjing], Tientsin [Tainjin], Macau, Hong Kong, Nanning, Aigun, Swatow [Shantou] and Canton [Guangzhou]. ere
Here some items recently up for auction that were owned by Hedgeland. A silver presentation sugar bowl, by Wing Chun of Hong Kong, c.1903 is inscribed ‘K M Shaw and R F C Hedgeland Men’s’ Handicap Doubles’ and ‘Tientsin Lawn Tennis Club 1903’ and a silver ‘dragon’ champagne bowl, by Tuck Chang, c.1904, engraved ‘Tientsin Lawn Tennis club men’s handicap doubles 1904.’ Quite the tennis player – he was also awarded a silver two (bamboo style) handled cup, c.1910, inscribed ‘Ladies Recreation Club Hong Kong Mixed Doubles Handicap December 1910 Mrs Armstrong & RFC Hedgeland’.
Also a pair of silver ‘dragon’ toothpick holders, two basket shaped salt cellars and five Chinese silver menu holders, by Wang Hing, c.1903 also belong to Hedgeland as well as a silver beaker , with inscriptions in Mandarin from an official in Nanning.
Enjoying Guy Ritchie’s Young Sherlock (on Amazon). Brilliant to see Taiwanese actress Zine Tseng as the Princess Gulun Shou’an running around, and doing a fair bit of cool fighting, in Victorian Oxford.
