A String of Chinese Peach-Stones

This Victorian account of Chinese society and politics focuses particularly on the customs and rituals of rural life.

William Arthur Cornaby (Author)

9781108014106, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 June 2010

500 pages, 2 colour illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.8 cm, 0.63 kg

William Arthur Cornaby (1860–1921) was born in London and educated at the School of Mines before training as a Methodist minister. In 1885 Cornaby was sent as a missionary to Wuhan, central China, and A String of Chinese Peach-Stones (1895) was inspired by his experiences. Cornaby explains that his title suggests that the reader possesses 'a collection of desiccated tales, legends, and the like, picked up here and there along the highways and byways of China'. Cornaby's work covers the period 1849–1867, and discusses the major episodes of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) as well as providing a detailed account of village life in central China, with its farm work, foods, festivals, customs and rituals that remains of interest to anthropologists and historians today. Cornaby's aim was to educate his English readers and to interest them in the culture that so dominated his own life and work.

1. A village district in light and shade
2. Rural scenes and sounds
3. The mandarin in embryo
4. Red letter days
5. Compensations
6. Records of an ancient city
7. Can any pathos come out of China
8. An historical romance
9. Problems domestic and national
10. Gods many and lords many
11. A Taiping camp
12. The longhaired have come
13. Suffering by deputy
14. An old, old story in a new edition
15. Imperial pop-guns
16. The mart of central China
17. Four miles of flame
18. Imperialists to the front
19. Art and artists
20. How to become a demigod
21. Changing scenes
22. Father and daughter
23. Resurrection
24. For better, for worse.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]