This is an auction for AN INSULAR POSSESSION by Timothy Mo.

"In the early 1800s, the Chinese Empire became the reluctant host to a variety of Canton-based Occidental trading companies, eager to relieve it of tea and silver. In exchange, England soothed the Chinese with vast quantities of Indian opium, a practice much deplored but soon to be emulated by their American competitors. In Mo's novel two young Americans resolve to expose this and other abuses by leaving their trading company to start a newspaper. They are soon embroiled in a series of skirmishes later known as the Opium Wars, until a final Chinese victory relegates all traders to that unsettled territory, Hong Kong. This hefty work covers eight years of history. All manner of arcane information, correspondence, news clippings, characters and events are knit together by chronology alone, in an attempt to recreate the tenor of those times."

• Publishers Weekly (US)

Amazon.com reviews:

"The author of the acclaimed Sour Sweet presents a sweeping historical novel about corruption and greed, class, race, love and treachery set in Macao and Canton before and during the Opium Wars of the 19th century. Nominated for England's prestigious Booker Prize."

"FIVE STARS!! I absolutely devoured this book. It was short listed for the 1986 Booker Prize and rightly so. The first page describes how the river rolls past taking everything in its wake: children falling off fragile native craft, drunken sailors falling from ships; all the victims swept out to sea. The reader is transported by the author's narrative."

More very favourable reviews on Amazon.com.

Paperback 1986.

671 pages.

Very good condition.

The cost of shipping is $5.95.

There is of course no charge for shipping if you collect this book from my shop in Palmerston North following the auction.

Payment within seven days, please.