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Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1421806711. Binding solid. Pages unmarked and barely aged. Cloth cover has little or no wear. Dustjacket has only minor wear to edges, and otherwise fine. And glossy.; 5.5 X 0.81 X 8.5 inches; 300 pages.
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Add this copy of Two Years in the Forbidden City to cart. $73.96, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by 1st World Library.
This memoir of the so-called Princess Der Ling's time as one of the Empress Dowager of China's ladies in waiting rang the author's bell because those two years set the tone for the rest of her life. It gives an intimate and I think honest impression of what the Empress was like in private. This book is a strong antidote to the slander that has been printed about the Empress Cixi over the last century by people who never even met the woman. Der Ling knew her intimately. The picture you get of the Empress from this book is that of an old lady burdened by the cares and ceremonies of the Manchu court, who loved dogs, beautiful flowers, fancy clothing and, I think, Der Ling herself. Cixi could be arbitrary, even mean to the people around her but in Der Ling's experience she was no worse than any other monarch in that regard. The writing here is straight-forward and tends to concentrate on the daily activities of the Manchu court but it does not get into the politics of the era. Thus it has been easy for critics to dismiss Der Ling as a light-headed scribbler. Her biography of Cixi, OLD BUDDHA, is in fact almost unreadable. But TWO YEARS is a fascinating look at life in the last days of the Qing Dynasty's court. One might conclude that because the Empress was especially fond of Der Ling and she of her, that that this clouded Der Ling's writing. No. In fact I think this honest mutual affection is the great charm of this book because it goes far to reveal the basic humanity of Cixi and offsets much of the vicious lies that have been told about her.
