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Décadence Mandchoue: The China Memoirs of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse
In 1898 a young Englishman walked into a homosexual brothel in Peking and began a journey that he claims took him all the way to the bedchamber of imperial China’s last great ruler, the Empress Dowager Tz’u Hsi. Published now for the first time, the controversial memoirs of Sinologist Sir Edmund Backhouse provide a unique and shocking glimpse into the hidden world of China’s imperial palace, with its rampant corruption, grand conspiracies, and uninhibited sexuality. Backhouse was made notorious by Hugh Trevor-Roper’s 1976 bestseller Hermit of Peking, which accused Backhouse of fraudulence and forgery. This work, written shortly before Backhouse’s death in 1943, lay for decades forgotten and unpublished in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, dismissed by Trevor-Roper as nothing more than “a pornographic novelette.” But Décadence Mandchoue is much more than that. Alternately shocking and lyrical, it is the masterwork of a linguistic genius—a tremendous literary achievement and a sensational account of the inner workings of the Manchu dynasty in the years before its collapse in 1911. If true, Backhouse’s chronicle completely reshapes contemporary historians’ understanding of the era and provides an account of the Empress Dowager and her inner circle that can only be described as intimate.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2011
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About the author
Edmund Backhouse
17 books1 followerSir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet (20 October 1873 – 8 January 1944) was a British oriental scholar and linguist whose work exerted a powerful influence on the Western view of the last decades of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). Since his death, however, it has been established that some of his sources were forged, though it is not clear how many or by whom. His biographer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, described him as "a confidence man with few equals." Derek Sandhaus of Earnshaw Books, the editor of Backhouse's memoirs, after consulting with specialists in the period, argues that Trevor-Roper was offended by Backhouse's homosexuality and that Backhouse's undoubted confabulation was mixed with plausible recollection of scenes and details.
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December 29, 2016
My review as published in China Economic Review, May 2011:
For nearly 70 years, the original manuscript of the memoirs of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, British baronet, polyglot and libertine, sat unpublished – first in the hands of Reinhard Hoeppli, the Swiss physician who commissioned them, and then with British historian and Backhouse biographer Hugh Trevor-Roper, who eventually left them to the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
The memoirs were long considered unprintable – “a pornographic novelette” said Trevor-Roper, who didn’t stop there: “No verve in the writing can redeem their pathological obscenity ... [they are] the last explosion of repressed and distorted sexuality.”
As long as they remained locked within the Bodleian, few could challenge Trevor-Roper’s opinion. Now, thanks to the work of Earnshaw Books Editor Derek Sandhaus, we have Décadence Mandchoue, the second – and thus far the only published – part of Backhouse’s memoirs, covering his time in late Qing dynasty Peking.
As Trevor-Roper charged, the work may well be pornographic in parts. The first chapter begins with Backhouse walking into a male brothel in Peking and proceeding to detail both the establishment’s offerings and the specifics of his dalliance with his beloved catamite, Cassia Flower.
This is not a book for the prudish, or even for those who prefer tasteful restraint in their erotica; one scene involves consort with a “randy he-goat.” Nevertheless, those who can get past the nature of the content can take pleasure in the unabashed joy – and occasional poetry – in Backhouse’s descriptions, the “verve” to which Trevor-Roper grudgingly admitted. For example, Backhouse on a favored eunuch: “His eyes were luminous: lust and passion radiated from them like twin candles shedding their beams in a naughty world.”
If it were simply the recollections of an aging homosexual debauchée, however, Décadence Mandchoue would be of limited interest. Fortunately, the heart of the book is given over to Backhouse’s extended relationship with the Empress Dowager, Cixi (Tz’u Hsi).
His depictions of the aging regent and tales of intrigue in the imperial court form the narrative structure for these memoirs. They also make up most of the latter part of the book once Backhouse has expended his linguistic strength in relating his various physical congresses.
The relationship with Cixi is also the heart of much of the controversy surrounding this work. While few have raised objections to the notion of a Westerner engaged in pederasty-for-hire at pleasure gardens around the imperial capital, there is understandably more doubt about his claims that he engaged in what he terms commerce sexuel with the “Old Buddha” 150-200 times between 1904 and 1908. He also presents himself as a confidant of, among others, Cixi and her chief eunuch, and writes of the favors requested of him as his influence within the court grew.
Backhouse claims in his foreword that his writings “contain nothing but the truth, the whole truth and the absolute truth.” This is doubtful.
Hoeppli, who knew Backhouse personally, writes that the man’s memory was imperfect: “Whether old age had weakened it, or had allowed his equally extraordinary imagination occasionally to get the better of it, is impossible to decide. It is certain in any case that in some instances which could be checked, his memory was at fault.” Hoeppli, however, declares the work "fundamentally based on facts.”
With few, if any, sources that would be able to verify some of Backhouse’s more fantastic claims, it may be difficult to ever come to any more concrete conclusion – no proof has ever been found, for instance, of the existence of the diaries of Li Lien-ying, the chief eunuch, which Backhouse says would corroborate his descriptions of his meetings with Cixi.
But whether or not it is an accurate recounting of specific historical events – including the death of Cixi in 1908 – Décadence Mandchoue is at its fundament the work of a man with uncommon knowledge of and respect for the inner workings of the Qing court.
This alone makes it difficult to justify Trevor-Roper’s outright dismissal of the text. Setting aside questions of morality and accuracy, there has never been a book about China like this, and there will never be another.
For nearly 70 years, the original manuscript of the memoirs of Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, British baronet, polyglot and libertine, sat unpublished – first in the hands of Reinhard Hoeppli, the Swiss physician who commissioned them, and then with British historian and Backhouse biographer Hugh Trevor-Roper, who eventually left them to the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
The memoirs were long considered unprintable – “a pornographic novelette” said Trevor-Roper, who didn’t stop there: “No verve in the writing can redeem their pathological obscenity ... [they are] the last explosion of repressed and distorted sexuality.”
As long as they remained locked within the Bodleian, few could challenge Trevor-Roper’s opinion. Now, thanks to the work of Earnshaw Books Editor Derek Sandhaus, we have Décadence Mandchoue, the second – and thus far the only published – part of Backhouse’s memoirs, covering his time in late Qing dynasty Peking.
As Trevor-Roper charged, the work may well be pornographic in parts. The first chapter begins with Backhouse walking into a male brothel in Peking and proceeding to detail both the establishment’s offerings and the specifics of his dalliance with his beloved catamite, Cassia Flower.
This is not a book for the prudish, or even for those who prefer tasteful restraint in their erotica; one scene involves consort with a “randy he-goat.” Nevertheless, those who can get past the nature of the content can take pleasure in the unabashed joy – and occasional poetry – in Backhouse’s descriptions, the “verve” to which Trevor-Roper grudgingly admitted. For example, Backhouse on a favored eunuch: “His eyes were luminous: lust and passion radiated from them like twin candles shedding their beams in a naughty world.”
If it were simply the recollections of an aging homosexual debauchée, however, Décadence Mandchoue would be of limited interest. Fortunately, the heart of the book is given over to Backhouse’s extended relationship with the Empress Dowager, Cixi (Tz’u Hsi).
His depictions of the aging regent and tales of intrigue in the imperial court form the narrative structure for these memoirs. They also make up most of the latter part of the book once Backhouse has expended his linguistic strength in relating his various physical congresses.
The relationship with Cixi is also the heart of much of the controversy surrounding this work. While few have raised objections to the notion of a Westerner engaged in pederasty-for-hire at pleasure gardens around the imperial capital, there is understandably more doubt about his claims that he engaged in what he terms commerce sexuel with the “Old Buddha” 150-200 times between 1904 and 1908. He also presents himself as a confidant of, among others, Cixi and her chief eunuch, and writes of the favors requested of him as his influence within the court grew.
Backhouse claims in his foreword that his writings “contain nothing but the truth, the whole truth and the absolute truth.” This is doubtful.
Hoeppli, who knew Backhouse personally, writes that the man’s memory was imperfect: “Whether old age had weakened it, or had allowed his equally extraordinary imagination occasionally to get the better of it, is impossible to decide. It is certain in any case that in some instances which could be checked, his memory was at fault.” Hoeppli, however, declares the work "fundamentally based on facts.”
With few, if any, sources that would be able to verify some of Backhouse’s more fantastic claims, it may be difficult to ever come to any more concrete conclusion – no proof has ever been found, for instance, of the existence of the diaries of Li Lien-ying, the chief eunuch, which Backhouse says would corroborate his descriptions of his meetings with Cixi.
But whether or not it is an accurate recounting of specific historical events – including the death of Cixi in 1908 – Décadence Mandchoue is at its fundament the work of a man with uncommon knowledge of and respect for the inner workings of the Qing court.
This alone makes it difficult to justify Trevor-Roper’s outright dismissal of the text. Setting aside questions of morality and accuracy, there has never been a book about China like this, and there will never be another.
February 14, 2022
despite this book insisting that it is a memoir i'm inclined to agree with this excellent review that it is in fact a decadent novel pretending to be a memoir, because he seems to be purposefully playing with ideas of truth and writing certain things in a self consciously fictional way. what is it about? it's basically a series of vaguely related chapters documenting the author character's adventures in and around the royal court of qing dynasty china, with a particular focus on the character and personality of the empress dowager, who the author claims to have had an ongoing affair with. it is extremely explicit, describing a vast variety of sexual activities in detail, focusing to a large extent on homosexuality because that's where the author's tastes run, but not exclusively. there is also a tremendous amount of detail on late qing era politics and culture, although since it's probably a novel you should take some of the specifics here with a grain of salt, (e.g. the claim that the empress dowager's true cause of death was being shot by yuan shikai with a revolver at point blank range). the book is written as a sort of language mosaic, where he'll freely quote passages in french, latin, greek and sometimes other more exotic languages without translating them(fortunately there are some nice endnotes explaining these), and if you've ever wanted a bewildering variety of names for sexual positions in different languages he supplies those. in addition to this, much of the dialogue spoken in chinese is given in three forms in the text - the chinese characters, their transliteration(in wade giles because this was written in the 40s) and then an English translation of them afterwards, such that something like a third of the text isn't written in English. he also has a very enjoyable long winded style, favouring digressions, allusions to all your favourite decadent writers(many of whom he claims to have known personally, which may or may not be true) and occasional vilifications of the 'tottering' british empire. all in all it's great stuff, exactly the kind of bizarre unclassifiable book i like.
note that if you want the full experience of the work you need the 2011 edition, which seems to have fallen out of print from the publisher(even the ebook version, which makes no sense to me), and should avoid the edition they currently have in print(titled 'manchu decadence) which is abridged, lacks most of the footnotes and streamlines the use of multiple languages. i'm not sure why the publisher thought making a more 'accessible' version of an incredibly esoteric stylistically unusual book was a good idea but that's what they seem to have done.
note that if you want the full experience of the work you need the 2011 edition, which seems to have fallen out of print from the publisher(even the ebook version, which makes no sense to me), and should avoid the edition they currently have in print(titled 'manchu decadence) which is abridged, lacks most of the footnotes and streamlines the use of multiple languages. i'm not sure why the publisher thought making a more 'accessible' version of an incredibly esoteric stylistically unusual book was a good idea but that's what they seem to have done.
January 29, 2012
Decadence Mandchoue, like its author, Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, is sui generis. Backhouse was an extraordinary linguist, scholar, and pedant as well as a true quirk, a hoaxer and forger - and a brilliant eroticist. Derek Sandhous has done painstaking work annotating the Latin, French and other references in the work. It is, incidentally, the inspiration for the novel I'm currently writing.
February 11, 2012
"Memory and imagination; the first counts as nothing without the second…."
Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse' reminiscences of Beijing as the Manchu dynasty collapsed entering the 20th century.
The work was essentially commissioned by the Swiss physician Rehinhard Hoeppli who met Backhouse in Beijing in the early 1940s (the book was written in 1943; Backhouse died in Beijing in 1944). Hoeppli sums it up: "'Décadence Mandchoue,' even as a work of imagination, would keep the merit of giving extraordinarily well the general atmosphere of Tz'u His's [the Dowager Empress Cixi] court especially as far as the erotic side is concerned. In a certain sense, the author's achievement would be still more extraordinary if all the colorful vivid and in their way fascinating stories had been created by the author's imagination, especially if one remembers his age and the absence of any literary or other help."
Not an easy read. Backhouse wrote in arch Victorian style, peppering his narrative incessantly with phrases in Chinese (all of which are translated), French, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Greek, German, and Russian, and making frequent reference to literary works that aren't likely familiar to modern readers--fortunately and unfortunately, these are all translated and explained in hundreds and hundreds of footnotes. Makes for a slow read, indeed.
What was too scandalous to be published until now is now more tedious than scandalous.
This book, just published in 2011, was made infamous by the so-called historian Trevor-Roper in a 1976 "mean-spirited and narrow-minded" [editor Derek Sandhaus] attack ["Hermit of Peking"] that was parroted by Seagrave in 1992 in a silly, sorry screed about the Dowager Empress CiXi ["Dragon Lady"]. Both lack the credibility of Backhouse: he was there in Beijing at the very time and he spoke and wrote the court languages (Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian).
Backhouse donated some 8 tons of Chinese manuscripts to Oxford's Bodleian Library between 1913 and 1923, which also houses the manuscript of this memoir. Sorting out fact and fancy awaits scholars and historians. This careful publication is a start.
Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse' reminiscences of Beijing as the Manchu dynasty collapsed entering the 20th century.
The work was essentially commissioned by the Swiss physician Rehinhard Hoeppli who met Backhouse in Beijing in the early 1940s (the book was written in 1943; Backhouse died in Beijing in 1944). Hoeppli sums it up: "'Décadence Mandchoue,' even as a work of imagination, would keep the merit of giving extraordinarily well the general atmosphere of Tz'u His's [the Dowager Empress Cixi] court especially as far as the erotic side is concerned. In a certain sense, the author's achievement would be still more extraordinary if all the colorful vivid and in their way fascinating stories had been created by the author's imagination, especially if one remembers his age and the absence of any literary or other help."
Not an easy read. Backhouse wrote in arch Victorian style, peppering his narrative incessantly with phrases in Chinese (all of which are translated), French, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Greek, German, and Russian, and making frequent reference to literary works that aren't likely familiar to modern readers--fortunately and unfortunately, these are all translated and explained in hundreds and hundreds of footnotes. Makes for a slow read, indeed.
What was too scandalous to be published until now is now more tedious than scandalous.
This book, just published in 2011, was made infamous by the so-called historian Trevor-Roper in a 1976 "mean-spirited and narrow-minded" [editor Derek Sandhaus] attack ["Hermit of Peking"] that was parroted by Seagrave in 1992 in a silly, sorry screed about the Dowager Empress CiXi ["Dragon Lady"]. Both lack the credibility of Backhouse: he was there in Beijing at the very time and he spoke and wrote the court languages (Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian).
Backhouse donated some 8 tons of Chinese manuscripts to Oxford's Bodleian Library between 1913 and 1923, which also houses the manuscript of this memoir. Sorting out fact and fancy awaits scholars and historians. This careful publication is a start.
December 20, 2022
This has to be one of the most unusual memoirs I have ever read. Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse's recollections of his life in the sunset years of China's Qing dynasty is a captivating read, if the reader can approach this unusual work with a thoroughly open mind. Sir Edmund was a young British sinologist and polyglot, who claimed to have served as a sexual plaything for the carnal pleasure of the all powerful Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi. For a work such as this, there's bound to be a diversity of opinions, ranging from praise to outright denunciation. It has been described as nothing more than a romantic libertine's fantasy (a work of pure fiction inspired by a talented but licentious mind), to a true memoir suppressed for long decades and finally only seeing the light of day. But what do I think? Well, I might need to commit myself to the fence sitters, and just say that it would be impossible for a casual modern reader to assess and either confirm or deny the veracity of this work. I am however guided by two notions: 1) Truth can be, and often is stranger than fiction 2) The salacious private and sexual lives of monarchs and despots who wielded absolute power, often breached boundaries, going beyond what we can imagine or is officially recorded. So did this seemingly strange sexual liaison actually transpire between Backhouse and the old Empress? I would say it is quite unlikely, but yet not totally in the realm of the impossible. One might ask, given his homosexual proclivities, how Backhouse could have serviced the ancient Tzu Hsi to her satisfaction, who besides being elderly was also female? Well, let's just say the inner sanctum of the Qing court had its ways about it, and if the old Empress had requested for the virile young Backhouse to provide her with a more exotic brand of sexual entertainment, the gay libertine cannot say no. Is the memoir pornographic? In all honesty, there are parts that are undeniably unabashedly graphic, and if vivid descriptions of an ageing hirsute royal pudenda, among others, is repugnant, then you may want to avoid reading this book. Does it have accounts of so-called true events that border on the fantastical and incredible? The answer is again yes, especially if you compare these accounts to the known and verified historical record. But then, the question is: how much store should anyone set by the formal historical records? Isn't history the record of events as told by the victors, often leaving the other side narratives which may lean closer to the heart of truth expunged? Is this a book many readers will enjoy? Hard to say, but I feel that if you're not an uptight prude, and enjoy an unusual book that quite possibly and seamlessly blends truth and fantasy, or have an interest to immerse in the autumnal ethos of late imperial Beijing in the last years of the Manchu court, then you might give it a go. It would also help if you do not mind being regaled by tales of so-called 'sexual debauchery' and 'perversions' (which incidentally, I consider merely tags and labels to describe and condemn some types of human sexual activities, which the judgmental majority finds distasteful from their perspective). So in closing, I give this book 4 stars, as it transported me back to an atmospheric old Beijing in quite a magical way! Now isn't that one of the main reasons we read? In the hope of finding yet another book, that opens the door to worlds within and without, to worlds lost in the mists of time and space, to places and people that we can only encounter in our dreams and fantasies.
April 3, 2019
Certainly over the top! These are the astonishing tales as told by Edmund Backhouse, self proclaimed lover of Empress Dowager CiXi. Reading the abridged edition, in all its graphic lewdnesses, I muddled through the endless repetitive bedroom adventures of this openly homosexual Brit, in itself hardly believable. Fluent in Mandarin and Manchu, living in Peking at times of great transition I burned for Edmunds other unique insights. Backhouse witnesses mostly on engorged bits and bobs, with only a few scattered hints to more mundane life. Then again if you were a young foreigner having an affair with the de facto empress of China what else would you write about?
December 29, 2021
Hilarious if you're reading it for like, old-fashioned historic puns about tops and bottoms in China.
August 11, 2017
Brillante sinologo, reputato interprete per il British Foreign Service e per il corrispondente del London Times, probabile spia, Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse (1873 -1944) è una delle più affascinanti e controverse figure del pur variegato mondo pechinese pre-rivoluzionario. Queste memorie, scritte poco prima della morte, furono rifiutate da tutti gli editori dell'epoca, e si capisce: oltre all'esotismo, alla sensualità e alla crudeltà di prammatica descrivono un Oriente assai gaio in tutti i sensi dove la corte Manchu - incurante dei boatos rivoluzionari all'orizzonte - se la spassa allegramente fra fumerie d'oppio, bordelli maschili, intrighi di palazzo e sesso selvaggissimo e inesausto in quantità. La stessa Imperatrice vedova, la famigerata Cixi (o Tz'u Hsi), pur settantaquattrenne, fa del fascinoso straniero trentenne il suo mignon, chiedendogli plurime performance erotiche e gossip un po' naïf sulle regine europee - davvero Victoria d'Inghilterra e Alexandra di Russia non si davano alle orge folli e non facevano giustiziare le loro rivali? Grande conoscitore di trame e retroscena politici o millantatore falsario e narcisista? Difficile dirlo. Certo queste pagine - scritte in uno scoppiettante inglese arbasinico, farcito di ricercate citazioni francesi, cinesi, latine, italiane e greche che nemmeno un tacchino nel Giorno del Ringraziamento - restituiscono l'incredibile vitalità, erotica e non, di una cultura modernissima e spregiudicata, quanto di più lontano dalle grigie virtù rivoluzionarie che sopraggiunsero poi.
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