Forbidden City

By Anthony Esler

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0241898242
• ISBN13: 9780241898246
• Release Date: February 1978
• Publisher: H Hamilton
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Foreigners in China

In 1899 many countries had representatives living in a separate part of the city in Peking, China. To many Chinese these westerners were a threat to their way of life, and a specific group, known as the Boxers, led an effort to rid China of these "foreign devils" along with their god, and their interference, and return China to its traditional past. For a few months, the Foreign Legation was trapped within its walls defending itself against the Boxer siege. They held out, waiting for rescue, with dwindling food supplies and increasing sickness and death. Within this scenario is the fictionalized account of Elizabeth, a missionary's daughter who has arrived just before the siege. Working as an assistant to a Chinese doctor with whom she falls in love, she defies the rumors and distate of her peers to fulfill her lifelong dream to work in medicine. This relationship is complicated when the Boxers attack the legation, and both she and the doctor are separated and trapped in dangerous situations, and an attentive American soldier enters as her rescuer. Although the story is not as exquisitely written as other books I have read, it held my attention, and drew me in with its "forbidden love" romance, danger, and descriptions of Peking at that point in history.