Filled with a whimsical sense of humor and fantastic fables of faraway lands, this book, orignally written for children, offers a Western perspective on China in the mid-19th century. Using vivid detail and excellent cartoons, it demonstrates the clash between the Marco Polo-inspired view of a mythically serene China and the political realities of the Opium War, including the harsh, colonial era. A delightful mix of fact and fancy, it encapsulates the ethos of an era when the West saw China as a remote and unspoiled empire, ripe for the picking.