Peake in China: Memoirs

Ernest Cromwell Peake arrived in the Hankow region of inland China in 1899, the first medical missionary to attempt to bring modern medicine to the rural Chinese. Over the next twelve years, he overcame substantial obstacles―including the intense hostility of the local population toward foreigners and Western medicine―to build a hospital and successfully deliver up-to-date medical care to thousands. In the course of that time, he also married and had a son―the celebrated writer and artist Mervyn Peake, who spent his first twelve years living with his family in Hankow. Many years later, back home in England, Peake wrote his memoirs of the period, recording his arrival, his impressions of the Chinese, and the story of his work―as well as his experience of the historic events of the Chinese revolution in 1911, the overthrow of the ancient Qing Dynasty, and the Boxer Rebellion. With illustrations by Peake and an introduction by Hilary Spurling, the book carries us far away in time and place, to a civilization that would very soon be swept away by war and the forces of modern life.