1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910456560003321

Titolo

A century of travels in China [[electronic resource] ] : critical essays on travel writing from the 1840s to the 1940s / / edited by Douglas Kerr and Julia Kuehn

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Hong Kong, : Hong Kong University Press, 2007

ISBN

1-282-70863-5

9786612708633

988-8052-01-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (255 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

KerrDouglas

KuehnJulia

Disciplina

951

Soggetti

Electronic books.

China Description and travel

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [209]-225 and index).

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Notes on Contributors; Introduction; 1 - Sketching China and the Self-Portrait of a Post-Romantic Traveler: John Francis Davis's Rewriting of China in the 1840s; 2 - Converting Chinese Eyes: Rev. W. H. Medhurst, "Passing," and the Victorian Vision of China; 3 - Traveling Imperialism: Lord Elgin's Missions to China and the Limits of Victorian Liberalism; 4 - Mirror Images: John Thomson's Photographs of East Asia; 5 - Eating out East: Representing Chinese Food in Victorian Travel Literature and Journalism

6 - Encounters with Otherness: Female Travelers in China, 1880-19207 - Travel Writing and the Humanitarian Impulse: Alicia Little in China; 8 - The "Sphere of Interest": Framing Late Nineteenth-Century China in Words and Pictures with Isabella Bird; 9 - China Upriver: Three Colonial Journeys between Hong Kong and Canton, 1905-11; 10 - With Harry Franck in China; 11 - Journeys to War: W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and William Empson in China; 12 - Agnes Smedley: The Fellow-Traveler's Tales; Notes; Bibliography; Index; Color Plates

Sommario/riassunto

Writings of travelers have shaped ideas about an evolving China, while



preconceived ideas about China also shaped the way they saw the country. A Century of Travels in China explores the impressions of these writers on various themes, from Chinese cities and landscapes to the work of Europeans abroad. From the time of the first Opium War to the declaration of the People's Republic, China's history has been one of extraordinary change and stubborn continuities. At the same time, the country has beguiled, scared, and puzzled people in the West.