Title: Victorian travelers and the opening of China, 1842-1907
First published: 1999
Description: Three men and three women - a plant collector, a merchant and his novelist wife, a military officer, and two famous women travelers - went to China between the Opium War and the formal end of the Opium trade, 1842-1907. Their travel records and novels became a significant source of many of the West's impressions of that far-off land.

All of the writers had a degree of contemporary importance or fame and represented different views that lent significance to their writing about China. Robert Fortune, a horticulturalist, and Archibald Little, a merchant, represent travel and the business of empire. Constance Gordon Cumming, Henry Knollys, and Isabella Bird Bishop were adventure travelers. Alicia Little, wife and novelist, helpmeet and humanitarian, was a woman of empire.

Susan Schoenbauer Thurin's study of these writings presents a rich tapestry of impressions, biases, and cultural perspectives that inform our own understanding of the Victorians and their views of the world outside their own.
Subjects: Relations, Description and travel, History, Reisbeschrijvingen, Beeldvorming, Imperialisme, Britten, Descriptions et voyages, International relations, Travel, China, description and travel, China, history, 19th century, China, relations, foreign countries, Great britain, relations, foreign countries
Places: China, Great Britain
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: DS709 .T49 1999