First edition. Royal octavo, pp 486. Frontispiece of the Emperor on his throne and 40 further plate illustrations from photographs, two maps of Peking and the Forbidden City. Bound in green cloth covered hard boards, gilt lettering to the spine.

Sir Reginald Johnston was a British diplomat and the last British Commissioner of Weihaiwei. He was also the tutor and advisor to Puyi, the last emperor of China from 1919, a time when Puyi was still living in the Forbidden City as a non-sovereign monarch until Puyi was expelled from Peking in 1924. Johnston , along with Isabel Ingram, the daughter of an American missionary and also a tutor to Puyi, were the only two foreigners in history to be allowed in the inner court of the Qing dynasty. Johnston was in an unrivalled position to write of the dying days of the Qing Count in Peking, and this book was used as source material by Bernardo Bertolucci for his movie The Last Emperor.

Attractive bamboo design bookplate to front paste-down of Beatrix Metford and Stanley Wyatt-Smith. Metford wrote ‘Life and Travel in the Burma-China Border Lands; she was the second wife of Stanley Wyatt Smith, who entered the Chinese Consular Service in 1907, initially working as a Student Interpreter in Peking, rising through the ranks to be Consul in several Chinese cities in the 1930’s including Changsha and Shantou. In 1938 he was promoted to be Consul-General in Manila. With both having many years working in consular service in China, one assumes that Johnston and Wyatt-Smith were well acquainted.

The spine cloth is faded, otherwise an excellent copy of this uncommon book, clean, bright and unmarked internally. Grades Very Good Plus condition.