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Many of the marks attached to the phonetic rendering of the Chinese
words in this volume differ from those assigned to them in the
dictionaries. These apparent discrepencies are intentional, the
tones being given as they are applied, or appear to the ear of the
compiler to be applied, by the natives of Peking.
Many of the marks attached to the phonetic rendering of the Chinese
words in this volume differ from those assigned to them in the
dictionaries. These apparent discrepencies are intentional, the
tones being given as they are applied, or appear to the ear of the
compiler to be applied, by the natives of Peking.
In 1898 a young Englishman walked into a homosexual brothel in
Peking and began a journey that he claims took him all the way to
the bedchamber of imperial China's last great ruler, the Empress
Dowager Tz'u Hsi. Published now for the first time, the
controversial memoirs of Sinologist Sir Edmund Backhouse provide a
unique and shocking glimpse into the hidden world of China's
imperial palace, with its rampant corruption, grand conspiracies,
and uninhibited sexuality. Backhouse was made notorious by Hugh
Trevor-Roper's 1976 bestseller "Hermit of Peking," which accused
Backhouse of fraudulence and forgery. This work, written shortly
before Backhouse's death in 1943, lay for decades forgotten and
unpublished in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, dismissed
by Trevor-Roper as nothing more than "a pornographic novelette."
But "Decadence Mandchoue" is much more than that. Alternately
shocking and lyrical, it is the masterwork of a linguistic
genius--a tremendous literary achievement and a sensational account
of the inner workings of the Manchu dynasty in the years before its
collapse in 1911. If true, Backhouse's chronicle completely
reshapes contemporary historians' understanding of the era and
provides an account of the Empress Dowager and her inner circle
that can only be described as intimate.
In 1898 a young Englishman walked into a homosexual brothel in
Peking and began a journey that he claims took him all the way to
the bedchamber of imperial China's last great ruler, the Empress
Dowager Tz'u Hsi. The man was Sir Edmund Backhouse, and his
controversial memoirs, DEcadence Mandchoue, were published for the
first time by Earnshaw Books in 2011. This edition, renamed Manchu
Decadence, is abridged and unexpurgated, meaning that it focuses on
the most extraordinary and valuable elements of Backhouse's
narrative. Backhouse was a talented sinologist, and his book
provides a unique and shocking glimpse into the hidden world of
China's imperial palace, with its rampant corruption, grand
conspiracies and uninhibited sexuality.
One of the most popular and controversial Chinese history books
ever written, China under the Empress Dowager is also one of the
best. Authors Bland and Backhouse take you inside the Forbidden
City during the reign of Empress Dowager Cixi (1861-1908), a world
of power-thirsty eunuchs, concubines and Mandarins, intrigue,
bitter antagonism and ruthless reprisals. The book was unique for
its time in its reliance on Chinese source materials, some of which
may have been fabricated. As entertaining as it is enlightening,
the book that presaged the fall of the Qing dynasty is as readable
today as it ever was.
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