All The Tea In China Which Tells How Carolus Mortdecai Van Cleef Set Out To Seek His Fortune In Lond - Softcover

Kyril Bonfiglioli

3.83

327 ratings by Goodreads

9780948238154: All The Tea In China Which Tells How Carolus Mortdecai Van Cleef Set Out To Seek His Fortune In Lond

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0948238151 ISBN 13: 9780948238154

Publisher: Black Spring Press, 1991

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In this hilarious novel, Bonfiglioli takes us back in time to an ironical maritime romp?Master and Commander by way of Monty Python.

Inspired by a shotgun blast in the seat of his breeches, young Karli Van Cleef quits his native Holland to seek his fortune. He arrives in early Victorian London and soon he is turning a pretty profit. But Karli sees that true opportunity flowers in India's fields of opium poppies and the treaty ports of the China coast. So he takes a berth in an opium clipper hell-bent for the Indies. It is a journey beset with perils. Karli is confronted by the mountainous seas, high-piled plates of curry, and the ferocious penalties of the Articles of War. He survives the malice of the Boers, the hospitality of anthropophagi, and the horrors of Lancashire cooking. En route he acquires some interesting diseases, dangerous friends and enemies, a fortune, and a wife almost as good as new.

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About the Author:

Kyril Bonfiglioli (1928 – 1985) was an art dealer, accomplished fencer, a fair shot with most weapons, and a serial marrier of beautiful women. He claimed to be “abstemious in all things except drink, food, tobacco, and talking,” and “loved and respected by all who knew him slightly.”

From School Library Journal:

Adult/High School—Reissued 30 years after its initial American publication (Pantheon, 1978), All the Tea in China is the prequel to the author's "Mortdecai" trilogy (also reissued by Overlook, 2006). Karli Van Cleef is a 19th-century Dutch ancestor of Charlie Mortdecai. At the age of 19, having seduced and impregnated the daughter of a local lord, he finds it advisable to immigrate to England. There he sets up a modestly successful business selling Chinese porcelain. Soon, however, he sees the potential for even better profits in the opium trade and promptly takes ship for the Far East to make his fortune. The majority of the tale concerns Karli's voyage, where he must deal not only with the rigors of shipboard life, but also with pirates, mutineers, cannibals—and the Captain's wife. Karli is an amiable rogue, honest up to a point, with an eye both for his own self-interest and for whatever young women cross his path. This swashbuckling, mildly ribald adventure will appeal to teens who like historical fiction with a strong plot. With pirates continuing to be popular and the unlikelihood that libraries still own this—or ever did—for teens, young adult collection developers should take note.—Sandy Schmitz, Berkeley Public Library, CA
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