Wang the Ninth, so called by a quirk of custom though he was an eighth child, is born just before 1900 in Ten Li Hamlet, ten Chinese miles from the imperial highway. The novel follows him out of the village into service with foreigners and through the upheavals of a changing country, aiming, as its author says, to explain China to Western readers.
A curious, well-informed novel by a long-time resident of Peking; its outlook is that of a Western observer in 1919. Download the free EPUB.