Sun Yat-sen
Kidnapped in London
£1,386
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 19 June 2024 from 10:00 BST
Description
Being the Story of my Capture By, Detention at, and Release from the Chinese Legation, London. Bristol: J. Arrowsmith, c.1906. First edition, later issue, 8vo, 134 pp., contemporary patterned green cloth, rebacked in red cloth with manuscript title in black ink, half-title, wood-engraved portrait frontispiece, publisher's advertisement leaf to rear (listing works by Anthony Hope, and Diary of a Nobody), textblock toned, half-title and title-page slightly marked, half-title tipped in and verso with small section of adherence in centre of gutter to recto of frontispiece, frontispiece with tide-mark to upper margin, small ink-stain to lower fore corners to about p.75
Footnote
First published in 1897; this copy is undated on the title-page and the advertisement leaf mentions Anthony Hope's Sophy of Kravonia, which appeared in 1906. A single copy of the first edition is located in auction records, sold in 2022 with an autograph letter by Sun, with no other copy of the first or any other edition traced.
Kidnapped in London was the work which brought Sun Yat-sen international fame, setting him on the path to leading the overthrow the Qing dynasty and becoming the first provisional president of the Republic of China. Having orchestrated a failed uprising in Guangzhou in 1895, Sun embarked on a 16-year period of exile, deciding to travel first to London. Shortly after his arrival he was kidnapped by Chinese officials and held at the Chinese embassy on Portland Place for twelve days. Word of his imprisonment quickly spread and popular sentiment in his favour was marshalled by Dr James Cantlie, who had been Sun's teacher at the Hong Kong College of Medicine.
‘That Sunday 11th October morning in 1896, Sun Yat-sen was an obscure figure. By the time he was released form the embassy, 12 days later, he was a hero to the British press. His account of being Kidnapped in London, published within a few weeks, made him globally famous … By the time Sun left Britain, in June 1897, he was connected to an international network of supporters. The kidnapping had transformed an obscure troublemaker into a revolutionary figurehead. A sojourn in the imperial capital had filled his mind with ideas of progress, nationalism and socialism that would inspire his movement. Fifteen years later, that movement overthrew the Qing empire, appointed Sun “provisional president” of the Republic of China and helped to create modern Asia’ (Bill Hayton, ‘The London Kidnapping that Changed China’, New Statesman, 12th October 2021).