Posted by ACB on January 13, 2010 at 12:49:04 user ACB.
Now, here is a thing. "Missee Lee" turns out to be my son Charles's favourite AR book. He particularly likes the character of Miss Lee herself and he loves the twists and turns of the plot. I find myself being interrogated over the breakfast table about exactly how the pilacy and plotection arrangements worked.
I must say, it is a cracking good piece of plotting and, so far as one who was not there can tell, its descriptions are remarkably close to what China was like in the twenties and thirties.
Having paid a visit to Soong Ching-ling's house in Shanghai, one recognises exactly the sense of stepping out of China into Europe that the Swallows and Amazons experienced.