An Insular Posession

London. 1986. Chatto & Windus. 1st British Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0701130784. 592 pages. hardcover. keywords: Europe England Literature Hong Kong Asia World Literature. DESCRIPTION - Canton 1833. Walter Eastman and Gideon Chase, young Americans working in the 'Factories' the home of the East India Company on the south China coast are at loggerheads with the European community which thrives on the opium trade. When Eastman is fired, he and Chase establish an irreverent weekly paper, The Lin Tin Bulletin and River Bee, chronicling local business dealings, political events and the fashionable social life in nearby Macao. In their writing particularly in their attacks on their rival paper, the conservative Canton Monitor our two buccaneers show a flamboyance and crusading zeal which is shared by their friends and supporters: the bibulous painter O'Rourke, the river pirate Remedios and the Jesuit Ribeiro from whom Chase secretly takes lessons in Chinese. When the first Opium War breaks out their lives grow increasingly dangerous and diverse: Chase is enrolled as an interpreter and becomes an unwilling witness to battle; O'Rourke and Eastman (obsessed with the recently developed daguerreotype) contest the most telling means of recording suffering. Following the three men, we see the white Cantonese community pack its bags and move to Hong Kong to found a new trading empire on the ashes of the old. An Insular Possession has extraordinary scope and fascination. Its huge panorama reflected in newspaper extracts, letters and diaries wonderfully conveys the tone and ethos of the period, and combines the excitement of an adventure story with the wit of a comedy of manners and the intelligence of a first-class historical novel. The quick-witted Eastman, the fastidious Chase and the licentious O'Rourke show us a world which is multi-faceted, marvellously detailed and potently dramatic. The novel is a dazzling achievement by one of our finest writers. inventory #3385.…