First English edition, first printing. 208pp, with occasional black and white illustration. Emerald green cloth-covered board with blind embossed Chinese lettering on the upper panel, gilt titles on spine. Top edge sprayed blue. Pale blue endpapers. 8vo. Cloth just a little pushed in at spine base, upper text block edge a little dust dulled. A hint on spotting on remaining text block edges and endpapers else internally neat, clean and tight. In its original matte dust wrapper, price clipped, some spotting on interior, just a little rubbed at corners and spine ends. Dust jacket now protected in an archival quality Mylar wrapper fitted without the use of tape or adhesives.
In 1900, when the Boxer Rebellion had failed before a foreign army, the Manchu Court fled from Peking, a German Field-marshal, Count Waldersee, took possession of the Forbidden City. Although his famous soldier had been charged by Germany with a mission of vengeance, he is remembered more as a lover than a conqueror. Here for the first time in English is the story of Sai-chin-hua, the beautiful young woman who shared his life in the Imperial Palace and who had travelled through the underworld of Shanghai and the horrors of Manchu Prison - wherever she went she never failed to attract scandal, adventure.
