Britain's Chinese Eye: Literature, Empire, and Aesthetics in Nineteenth-Century Britain

251 Pages·2010·1.33 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Hope Chang

Britain’s Chinese eye

Britain’s Chinese Ey
e
literature, empire, and aesthetics
in nineteenth-century britain
Elizabeth Hope Chang
stanford university press
Stanford, California 2010
stanford University Press
stanford, California
©2010 by the Board of trustees of the
Leland stanford Junior University
all rights reserved
this book has been published with the assistance of the Paul Mellon Centre
for studies in British art.
Parts of Chapter 2 were first published in Nineteenth Century Studies 19 (2005):
17–34. reprinted with permission
no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without
the prior written permission of stanford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chang, elizabeth hope.
Britain’s Chinese eye : literature, empire, and aesthetics in
nineteenth-century Britain / elizabeth hope Chang.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8047-5945-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Great Britain—Civilization—Chinese influences. 2. Great
Britain—Civilization—19th century. 3. english literature—19th
century—history and criticism. 4. aesthetics, British—19th
century. 5. China—in literature. 6. China—in art. i. title.
da533.c46      2010
303.48'24105109034—dc22  2009034668
Printed in the United states of america
on acid-free, archival-quality paper
typeset at stanford University Press in 10/13.5 Galliard
To my grandmothers

Acknowledgments
it is a pleasure to be able to thank the many people who have helped see
this book into print. their assistance has added immeasurably to the value
of this work; any faults that remain are mine alone.
the University of California at Berkeley introduced me to wonderful
scholars (some now dispersed to other places) who helped start this proj-
ect in the right direction and, more important, taught me how to ask the
questions i needed to keep it going on my own: Celeste Langan, sharon
Marcus, Colleen Lye, Catherine Gallagher, and Lydia Liu. Mai-Lin Cheng
and asali solomon remain trusted sounding-boards and true friends. i also
thank the University of California for a Dissertation-year fellowship and
the townsend Center for the humanities for allowing me to participate
as a year-long fellow and showing me what interdisciplinary conversation
could look like.
at the University of Missouri, the english Department as a whole, and
especially my colleagues in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century studies—
noah heringman, George Justice, Devoney Looser, and nancy West—
have offered support, advice, and friendship in equal measure. sam Cohen,
Joanna hearne, and Donna strickland read every page of this book and
made every page of it better. the students, both graduate and undergradu-
ate, have helped me tremendously both by taking generous interest in my
work and by sharing their interests with me. the University of Missouri
research Board and research Council supported a year’s leave and a sum-
mer’s visit to London archives, respectively; both were indispensable to the
progress of this manuscript.
viii Acknowledgments
For their comments on and support of my work, i wish to thank the
members of the Dickens Project, ross Forman, Dane Kennedy, Douglas
Kerr, Julia Kuehn, Peter Logan, teresa Mangum, erika rappaport, and
Philip stern. David hanson published an earlier and partial version of
Chapter 2 in Nineteenth-Century Studies and gave valuable editorial feed-
back. i also thank the library staffs who have helped me acquire the neces-
sary materials for this study, in particular all the library staff at the Uni-
versity of Missouri, as well as the Bancroft rare Book Library, the British
Library, the Wellcome Library, the Lindley Library of the royal horticul-
tural society, and the Library and archives at the royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew.
at stanford University Press, i want to thank especially emily-Jane Co-
hen, who shepherded this book through its long development process,
and sarah Crane newman, attentive to every detail. i also want to thank
the anonymous readers of the manuscript whose suggestions changed this
book in uniformly good ways.
My family has remained ever patient with the demands of this project. i
want to thank all of them, especially Claire and ed stiepleman, kindest of
in-laws; Lily shih, Witt Monts, Gabriel Monts, and serena Monts, best of
cousins; and of course my parents, Margaret and raymond Chang, who
showed me how to write and to teach long before i realized that i would
want to do both of those things. i have since realized both how hard and
how wonderful it is to follow their shining examples. Most of all i must
thank my children, isaac, ezra, and Jacob, and my husband, Peter, for love
and companionship beyond the bounds of words.
Contents
    introduction 1
1. Garden 23
sir William Chambers and the Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, 28.
the Macartney Mission of 1793 and the Qing imperial Gardens, 37.
robert Fortune as horticultural spy in racial Disguise, 56.
2. Plate 71
romantic satires on Blue and White China, 75. the Willow Pattern and
George Meredith’s The Egoist, 88. Whistler and rossetti as Collectors of
Blue and White Porcelain, 97.
3. Display Case and Den 111
exhibiting China in Victorian London, 115. Display Cases and Opium
Dens in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 125. Edwin Drood’s inheritors, 133.
4. Photograph 141
Felice Beato and the second Opium War, 146. through China with
John thomson’s Camera, 152. “a truthful impression of the Country”:
isabella Bird, 163.
    Conclusion 179
Notes 187
Works Cited 219
Index 229