HUNTER, William C.

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The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton. Second edition, first printing, of this valuable memoir of Canton in the years before the First Opium War. The author, a mainstay of the small expatriate community, interweaves recollections of his fellow traders and their business activities with engaging descriptions of the city's powerful mandarins, the hubbub of daily life, and tensions between foreigners and locals. This edition was published under the auspices of his son, A. C. Hunter, "as enquiries for [William C. Hunter's] books have become more and more numerous", the first editions "long since exhausted" (p. vi)William Charles Hunter (1812-1891) was a Virginian who travelled out to China at the age of just 13, spending two years studying Chinese at the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca before joining Thomas H. Smith & Sons, America's largest tea importer, as an apprentice. He subsequently worked for leading American opium dealers, making partner at Russell & Co. in 1837 and accumulating a considerable personal fortune.The 'Fan Kwae' at Canton (first published in 1882) sheds significant light on life among the "foreign devils" ("fan kwae") in Canton before the introduction of the treaty port system. By imperial edict, Canton was the only city open to foreign merchants. Westerners were required to work within the city's cohong system, allowed to trade only with specific Chinese merchants through a highly regulated import and export framework. Hunter details his journey to Canton, the western f

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