Shanghai '37

By Vicki Baum

Book Overview

Vicki Baum, author of the acclaimed Grand Hotel, visited Shanghai in 1937. Her many friends there provided her with a wealth of information about China's convoluted politics, and the secret life and unique personalities of Shanghai--material she used as the basis of Shanghai '37. The hotel depicted in the novel was the Cathay, which, on August 14, 1937, following the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, was attacked by a bomb. This incident, known as "Bloody Saturday," caused considerable damage and the deaths of many people. It forms the climax of Shanghai '37, a story that follows the lives of nine people to Shanghai and the hour of their death. This book, the second of Baum's "hotel" novels, was first published in America in 1939.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195838769
• ISBN13: 9780195838763
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 619 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.7" x 1.3" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

First class second rate

This is not first rate literature, for the literati and erotomanics will surely find no insights of interest here. But it brings a given time and place to life so well that it deserves to be read, and reread, and loved. Here too, a heretical thought could be reinforced: the characters seem more modern than we are...

This book stands the test of time.

She was reusing her successful formula but this is my favourite of her novels. Interesting description of China before the revolution. Baum deserves to be rediscovered.

A masterpiece

Many very different characters will meet at the Shangai Hotel... A Japanese businessman; A Russian aventurière; A Chinese rickshaw coolie; An American couple; A Chinese millionaire; Two Jewish refugies from Germany.Every page of this novel is spellbinding.