An Insular Possession | An Insular Possession

At a glance:

Author: Timothy Mo
First Published: 1986
Type of Work: Historical satire
Time of Work: The early 1830’s and 1840’s, including the outbreak of the Opium War and Great Britain’s colonization of Hong Kong
Setting: Canton, the Macao Peninsula, Lin Tin Island, and Hong Kong
Principal Characters: Gideon Chase, Walter Eastman, Alice Remington, Harry O’Rourke, Father Joaquim Ribeiro, Pedro Remedios
Genres: Long fiction, Historical fiction, Satire
Subjects: Politics, Colonies or colonization, Race, Nineteenth century, Asia or Asians, War, India or East Indian people, Drugs, Commerce, Opium, Silk
Locales: China, Hong Kong, Canton, China, Lin Tin Island, China, Macao

Presiding over the southern China trading world of An Insular Possession is the mighty British Empire, a rigid and notorious taskmaster of the native Chinese. In the century previous to the time of the novel, the Chinese wielded a precarious upper hand over the British: The empire’s gluttonous demand for tea indebted it to these chief suppliers of the commodity, and it paid in pounds of silver. The solution to Great Britain’s damaged economy lay in creating a viable trading commodity. The Empire turned to its largest colony, India, sent its laborers into...

An Insular Possession | An Insular Possession

At a glance:

The Novel

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