Twilight in the Forbidden City
Twilight in the Forbidden City
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British academic and diplomat Reginald Fleming Johnston (1874–1938) published Twilight in the Forbidden City in 1934. The work is a memoir of Johnston's time in Beijing between 1919 and 1924, at the court of the Qing Dynasty, where he served as tutor to Aisin-Gioro Puyi (1906–1967), last emperor of China. Johnston was one of only two foreigners who were permitted to enter the imperial palace, and so his account provides a unique Western perspective on the epochal events of the period. The work has a preface by the emperor Puyi and includes detailed descriptions of palace rituals, including Puyi's wedding ceremony; translations of key documents; Johnston's perspective on the revolution of 1911 and the 1917 restoration; his observations on Chinese society as a whole; and eye-witness accounts of the political intrigues of the palace. The memoir was dramatised in Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematic masterpiece, The Last Emperor.
Product details
- Published: June 2011
- Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 9781108029650
- Length: 572 pages
- Dimensions: 216 × 140 × 32 mm
- Weight: 0.72kg
- Contains: 36 b/w illus. 2 maps
- Availability: Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Preface
- 1. The Reform Movement of 1898
- 2. The collapse of the Reform Movement
- 3. Reaction and the Boxer Movement, 1898–1901
- 4. The last years of Kuang-Hsü, 1901–1908
- 5. The Empress-Dowager, T`zǔ-Hsi
- 6. The Revolution, 1911
- 7. The 'Articles of Favourable Treatment' of the Manchu Imperial House
- 8. The Ta Ch`ing and the Hung Hsien Emperors
- 9. Change Hsün and the Restoration of 1917
- 10. Autobiography of the Old Man of the Pine-Tree (translated from the Chinese)
- 11. The Forbidden City, 1919–1924
- 12. The Imperial tutors
- 13. The Manchu court in twilight
- 14. The Imperial Household Department (Nei Wu Fu)
- 15. The dragon unfledged
- 16. Monarchist hopes and dreams
- 17. The dragon restless
- 18. The dragon flaps his wings
- 19. Dragon and phoenix
- 20. Plots and stratagems
- 21. The Imperial garden
- 22. The summer palace
- 23. The Fifth of November
- 24. The dragon caged
- 25. The flight of the dragon
- Epilogue: the dragon goes home
- Pedigree of the Manchu Emperors
- Notes
- Index.
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