the Editor of the "Nommu-Curwa Dany News"
Sm—I have read with interest and some surprise your "Comment" of June 19 on the special Book Number. fof the "China Review" as well as Mr. Carol Lunt's letter upon it in' your issue of June 20, Whoever wrote the article referred to by you has made a bad mistake, for it is} entirely erroneous to suggest that, there are more women writers of! novels with a Chinese selling and characters than men.
When I saw Mr. Lunt's letter 1 thought he wae going to point out this mistake, but I see that he wrote to correct other mistakes. Even 50 he is in error himself in saying that Putnam Weale's last novel was "The Port of Fragrance," published in 1990; for I have recently read one by the title of which I have for~ gotten, but' which was published either' in 1983 or 1934. It was not hhis best style, and the thought! occurred 10 me as I read it that it might have been left by him in the rough when he died, and was subsequently prepared by some one else for publication. It told of the a ventures, financial, mining and political, of a forceful foreigner, in Shanghai, Peking and Inner Mongolia, and the machinations of a Shanghai [Chinese crook lawyer, the period be-jing that covering the few years be-{fore the author's death.
But what I would like to point out that there are actually more male [Western authors of novels on China than female; only their works have nol, apparently, come into the limelight to the same extent.
Rodney Gilbert wrote at least one novel in which the characters were jail Chinese and the scene entirely laid in China, namely, in the middle valley of the Yellow River. He called "The Inscriptions of Lin Mang."
"Man's Fate," also published under the lille "Storm in Shanghaly" is a translation of "La Condition Humaine" fey Andre Malraux, a man. And, surely Shanghai has not fergotien Lunt's modesty apparently caused, him to refrain from mentioning his Jown novel "His Chinese Bride.
Some years ago I read a novel [describing the adventures of a young Szechuen peasant, who became alternately a soldier and a bandit. It was written by a missionary, a man, whose name I fall to remember. The title was "The Laughing Buddbi Damien Martel wrote a novel on Peking called "Silhouettes of Peking," which has been translated into Engish.
Paul King, formerly of the Customs Service, father of Louis King, wrote, jointly with Veronica King, a read-fable novel called "The Commission-for's Dilemma," which dealt with the adventures of a young British mem~ ber of the Customs Service in Canton, who got mixed up with Chinese re volutionary plotters.
'Norman' Hinsdale Pitman wrote Dragon Lure in 1925, which was ce centred in Peking during the days of Yuan Shih)
"The scene of Samuel Merwin's Hills of Han" was laid in the prov-Ince of Shansi, the period of the novel being about the year 1907, when -the Shansi people were clamouring for the cancellation of the Pekin Syndiccate's coal and iron concession in that province, Upton Close's "Moonlady," another Fy of the Royal Asiatic Society, has recently published a book of short tories, whose setting and characters we entirely Chinese, under the title "Yellow Rivers," and while it can-of, strictly speaking, be called a level, the stories are' to a certain extent fictional, though, I believe, based on the author's experiences as missionary.
Then there are the novels of Somerset" Maugham. This, makes twelve male writers who have published novels on China to set against the eight female writers mentioned in your "Comment." I believe there fare several others, which might be mentioned, though these are quite sufficient fo upset the contention ut forward in the "China Review" as reported in your Comment.
Axmuun be C. Sowent Shanghai, June 22,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.