First American edition. 8vo. Frontispiece plate and a map of the legation quarter. Original red cloth, a close to fine copy. [vii], 447pp. t.e.g. New York, Dodd Mead & Co., 1907.
Putnam Weale was the pen-name of Bertram Lenox Simpson (1877–1930) who was born in China and initially worked for the Chinese Maritime Custom Service. Simpson provides a surprisingly critical eye-witness account of the Siege of the Legations. He was forced to resign from the Maritime Customs in 1901 and for some time he worked as the China Correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. He was found murdered in Tianjin in 1930. The work was first published in London in 1906.
