Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse

Sir Edmund Backhouse (1873-1944), up until this book was first published in 1976, was renown as a great scholar of sinology. In conjunction with the British journalist and former Times correspondent J.O.P Bland, he had authored two best selling books about the Chinese Royal Court at the Forbidden City, Peking (now Beijing). Backhouse, by the time of his death, had lived in China for nearly 40 years. The high esteem in which he had been held by students and scholars of Chinese history collapsed upon publication of this book by Hugh Trevor-Roper (HTR). Trevor-Roper of course is the esteemed British historian and author of the classic "The Last Days of Hitler". The "Hermit of Peking" is the first full biography of one of history's greatest scam artists, Sir Edmund Backhouse. The pinnacle of Backhouse's achievements, the publication of "China under the Empress Dowager" in 1910, was found to be based on a forgery, one of many forgeries as it transpires, perpetuated by Backhouse, the ramifications of which continue to this day. I first read of Backhouse in Diana Preston's book "The Boxer Rebellion", (a modern account of the siege of the Peking legations in 1900 by the Chinese Boxers) and again in Sterling Seagrave's "Dragon Lady", a revisionist biography of Tzu His, the Dowager Empress. Both authors are not charitable about Backhouse, and both give a potted biography of the man, particularly in Seagrave's book. In fact, Seagrave is particularly scathing and rightly so. As a direct consequence of Backhouse's forgery of a diary supposedly by a high Manchu court official, and subsequent book publications based upon the diary, popular history regards the Dowager Empress as an evil, scheming, and manipulative woman, who went as far as having her own son murdered to maintain her grip on the regency of China. The "Hermit of Peking" gives a much fuller account of the life of Backhouse, and fills in more detail about the numerous frauds that Backhouse tried pull off. Not only was Bland as co-author of "China under the Empress Dowager" a victim (Bland believed until his death that the diary could not have been a forgery) of Backhouse's fraudulent activities, but also G. Morrison, the renown Times Correspondent. Even Oxford University and the British Government were taken in as HTR gleefully relates. It is amazing that Backhouse got away with what he did without the greater world being aware of it, but HTR shows the reader how he did so (Backhouse's victim's embarrassment was one reason). In part, "The Hermit of Peking" is a detective story as HTR pulls the threads of this tale together, sorts fact from the many fictions. It is well written, and only in the final chapters does HTR delve into the literary pornography for which Backhouse is now famous for, and HTR does so with taste, sparing the reader the graphic details (Seagrave doesn't spare though). Trevor-Roper relied on a number of sources, which in the main is the private correspondence o

This is one of my favorite books. Trevor-Roper uses his considerable scholarly ability to write about a strange life that reads more like fiction than history. It is a real page turner as the eccentric and convoluted life of Backhouse is revealed. Trevor-Roper takes us from his years at Oxford and his association with famous homosexual elite of the turn of the century, his excesses in spending beyond his means, an excellent linguist, a notorious con-man, and exceptional forger, a neglected figure in history and in his old age, a latent homosexual. Homosexuality (although I mention the word twice in this review) is certainly not the prominent theme and is handled with delicacy and is merely treated as another facet in trying to understand this complex man. I recommend this book for both the historian and any reader of fiction that enjoys a good yarn. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.