國立交通大學
社會與文化研究所碩士論文
China under Victorian Women Travel Writers’ Pen: An analysis on Mrs. Archibald Little’s Intimate China.
維多利亞時期女性旅遊作家筆下的中國：
以立德夫人之《親近中國》為例
指導教授: Erik Ringmar 教授
研究生：梁永怡 中華民國 一百年 一月
China under Victorian Women Travel Writers’ Pen: An analysis on Mrs. Archibald Little’s Intimate China.
維多利亞時期女性旅遊作家筆下的中國：以立德夫人之《親近中國》為例 摘要： 立德夫人於 1886 年隨著其夫婿來到中國，在旅居中國二十年中，她一方面 活躍於當地的上層社會，在上海成立「天足會」，大力提倡反纏足運動；另一方 面，她筆耕不輟，出版十本以中國為題材的小說與雜記。 本論文以立德夫人為研究對象，主要的分析文本為其所著之《親近中國》 (Intimate China: The Chinese as I have seen Them)一書。全書共有 615 頁，於 1899 年由 Hutchinson & Co 在倫敦出版。 本論文分為導論包含研究動機與研究方法。 第一章『維多利亞時期的女性角色』分三個部分：（一）婦女的社會角色 與責任；（二）女性旅遊作家所反映出的社會價值；（三）女性旅遊作家與中國 社會的對話及交流。 第二章『立德家族在中國』分為四部分：（一）立德夫人婚前的生活與著 作；（二）立德夫人在中國之見聞；（三）立德先生之中國背景；（四）立德夫 人有關中國之著作。 第三章『在大英帝國的架構下呈現中國』分為三個部分：（一）《親近中 國》的書寫分析；（二）文化衝擊以及其中國經驗；（三）探討反纏足運動以及 對中國婦女的看法。 結論：立德夫人之性格與後人對她的評價。 關鍵字：立德夫人，女性旅遊作家，維多利亞時期，十九世紀在中國的西方人， 女性旅遊書寫
China under Victorian Women Travel Writers’ Pen: An analysis on Mrs. Archibald Little’s Intimate China.
維多利亞時期女性旅遊作家筆下的中國：以立德夫人之《親近中國》為例
Abstract:
In 1886, Mrs. Archibald Little accompanied her husband to China. During twenty years there, she was active among the Chinese upper society by starting the Unbinding-Foot Association in Shanghai and was devoted in the cause. She also continued her writing career and published ten books related to China.
This thesis used Mrs. Archibald Little’s Intimate China: The Chinese as I have Seen Them as main analysis materials.
Introduction included research motive and research metholodgy. Chapter One, Roles of Victorian Women, focuses on Victorian
womanhood. It is separated into three parts: first, women’s social roles and responsibilities; second, the social values that were presented by other women travel writers; third, the dialogues and interactions between women travel writers and Chinese society, and three different types of women travel writers in China.
Chapter Two, The Littles in China, is separated into four sections: first, her life and publications prior to marriage; second, her life and adventures in China; third, her publications related to China; fourth, her life and publications.
Chapter Three, Presenting China under the Framework of British Empire, is separated into three parts: first, the analysis of Intimate China; second, culture shock and Mrs. Little’s Chinese experience; third, discussing the Unbinding foot movement and Mrs Little’s views of Chinese women.
Conclusion, summarizes Mrs. Little’s life and discusses how others viewed her.
Keywords: Mrs. Archibald Little, Alicia Bewicke Little, Victorian women travel writer, Nineteenth century British people in China.
目錄：
導論
………..……….…...…1第一章 維多利亞時期婦女角色
角色與責任……….……4 女性旅遊者與其書寫……….…....8 在中國之女性旅遊作家………...15第二章 立德家族在中國
童年與早期寫作生涯……….……...20 立德夫人旅居中國之二十年 (1886-1907)………25 立德先生的中國遊歷 (1859-1907)………28 立德夫人之出版作品………...……….31 關於立德夫人之出版作品………34第三章《在大英帝國的框架下呈現中國》之分析
導言...38 成書背景與《親近中國》所獲之評價………39 書名分析………40 內容編排………41 中國經驗：假想與現實 上海經驗………43 武昌經驗………45 在大英帝國的架構中呈現中國………46 作為一個在中國之英國女性旅遊者………52 感受異國的東方………55 反纏足運動………57結論
………64參考文獻
……….67附錄
附錄一. 十九世紀在中國之英國女性旅遊作家………76 附錄二. 立德夫人之著作………79 附錄三. 立德先生之著作………80
Content
Introduction………1
Chapter One Victorian Women
Roles and Responsibilities……….4Women Travelers and their writings……….8
Women Travel Writers in China………15
Chapter Two The Littles in China
Childhood and Early Writing Career……….………..20Mrs. Archibald Little’s twenty years in China (1886-1907)………..…....25
Archibald Little in China (1859-1907)……….…………28
Mrs. Archibald Little’s publications………..……31
Publications related to Mrs. Archibald Little……….…….34
Chapter Three: Presenting China under the Framework of British
Empire
Introduction………38Background and Critical Review of Intimate China……….39
The Name - Intimate China……….…………..………...………..40
Arrangement of Content ……….41
Chinese Experiences: Assumptions and Reality The Shanghai Experience………..43
The Wu-Chang Experience………45
Presenting China within the framework of the British Empire…………...…...46
As a British women traveler in China………...52
The Sense of the Exotic East………55
The Unbinding Foot Movement……….57
Conclusion
………64Index
Index 1:Nineteenth century British female authored travel writings in China………76 Index 2:
Mrs. Archibald Little’s works………79 Index 3:
Introduction:
On March 19th 2008, Christie’s Auction House auctioned Mrs. Little’s personal collection of Chinese men’s and women’s shoes, her scrapbook, two passports, deeds and correspondence with Chinese officials for the price of USD$13,750 American dollars1. The auction of Mrs. Little’s personal
belongings demonstrates continued interest in her life and work in China. The materials are of interest to collectors and may also be of interest to future historians.
My interest in Mrs. Archibald Little derived from participation in the National Science Council’s project: One Artificial Paradise, Two Cultures of Opium Consumption. Mrs. Little’s writings set her apart from other travel writings written at the time. She focused more on everyday life in China rather than the history of the influential and famous or geographical and cultural facts. The desire to know Mrs. Little and her works provided the motivation for this thesis. I wanted to explore Mrs. Little’s Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen them and use it to explain the complex nature of nineteenth century Victorian women travelers.
In this thesis, interdisciplinary methods and insights were applied, in order to investigate Mrs. Archibald Little’s Intimate China—as a
nineteenth-century historical record and consider how nineteenth-century British women balanced their given identity provided by Victorian society and their own recognition of it in the context of Chinese culture. Locational
1 In Christie’s catelogue, it belonged to Sale 2108, Lot 106. The collection belonged to Linda Wrigglesworth Ltd., a private company that specialized in Chinese textiles and costumes from the Ming and Qing dynasties 1396-1911.
feminism, as Susan Stanford Friedman referred to it, is a strategy “which exposes the complicated interplay of axes of identity for women subjects.” 2 For the nineteenth century British women travel writers, it implied that they (British women travel writers) might not have been entitle to and share in the same privileges that the British Empire provided for their male counterparts, yet they occupied a higher position in relation to colonial subjects or, as in this thesis, the local Chinese.
Using Friedman’s perspective, British women travel writers by
strategically and situationally (i.e., locationally) emphasizing their womanliness or their Britishness could claim imperial authority without infringing on Victorian social traditions. In this context, Mrs. Archibald Little could teach local Chinese children English, promote the Unbinding-foot Movement and offer her insights on Chinese domestic lifestyles. While establishing their personal authority through their portrayal of the Chinese, British women travel writers
encountered various other voices with which they expressed sympathy through acknowledgement in their texts.
Travel writings contained descriptions of the interactions between the travelers and locals. Such interactions often reshaped the identities of both travelers and locals. Discourse analysis focused on not only the literal aspects of the writing but also on the author’s social background and social convention. Michael Foucault defined discourse as:
We shall call discourse a group of statements in so far as they belong to the same discursive formations;[…Discourse] is made up of a limited number of statements for which a group of conditions of existence
2 Megan A.Norcia, “X” Marks the Spot: Victorian Women Writers Map the Empire. (University of Florida, 2004), 6.
can be defined. Discourse in this sense is not ideal, timeless form that also possesses a history; … it is from beginning to end, historical—a fragment of history, a unity and discontinuity in history itself, posing the problem of its own limits, its divisions, its transformations, the specific modes of its temporality.3
Therefore, Chapter One, Victorian Women, will center on Victorian
womanhood and its effect on women travel writers. Chapter Two, The Little’s in China, introduces and analyzes Mr. and Mrs. Little’s life in China. Chapter Three, Presenting China within the Framework of the British Empire, presents Mrs. Little as a British subject, how she coped with a different culture, and how she perceived the Chinese culture and its people.
3 Michel Foucault,The Archaeology of Knowledge. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. (London: Tavostock, 1972), 117.
Chapter One Roles of Victorian Women
Roles and ResponsibilitiesVictorian women came from different financial and social strata and were expected to act in accordance with the norms of the different statuses to which they belonged. Though Victorian women from different social backgrounds had to different social expectations, they were mostly expected to stay within the domestic domain.
In Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age, Martha Vicinus elaborated on the concepts of Victorian women based on their social classes and the transformation of their roles in society throughout the sixty years of Victorian time.
The lower and middle classes could not afford losing the contributions women could provide for the family. In the lower class, women were expected to contribute to the household income as well as fulfill domestic duties.4
Women in the middle class contributed to the family through domestic labor and household responsibilities. Regardless of their class differences, lower and middle class women were still expected to remain in the domestic domain5.As for Women in the upper class, they were viewed as “perfect ladies,” and were expected to do very little. Through Vicinus’ description, it becomes apparent that the role of the “perfect lady” was limited to the domestic domain,
In the upper class, a young girl was brought up to be perfectly
4
Peter N Stearns. ‘Working Class Women in Britain, 1890-1914’ in Suffer and Be Still:
Women in the Victoria Age.(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), 101-103.
5 Martha Vicinus, (ed.) Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victoria Age. (Bloomington: Indiana
innocent and sexually ignorant…Once married, the perfect lady did not work; she had servants. She was mother only at set times of the day, even year; she left the heirs in the hands of nannies and
governesses. Her social and intellectual growth was confined to the family and close friends. Her status was totally dependent upon the economic position of her father and then her husband. In her most perfect form, the lady combined total sexual innocence, conspicuous consumption and the worship of the family hearth.6
Later, the roles of women in society changed, as Vicinus explained: “Through a variety of economic and social changes her [the Victorian woman’s] sphere of action became greatly enlarged.”7 Due to these social and
economic changes, the image of Victorian women were transformed from that of a “perfect lady,” whose purpose was merely to reproduce, to that of a “perfect woman” or “new women” whose purpose was to better herself. The “perfect women” worked, received an education and acknowledged their lack of legal and political rights.8 Ideal femininity had progressed with time, but
family was still the cornerstone of the Victorian society. Therefore, the “new woman” might have seemed to gain a lot of rights and freedom compared to the “perfect lady,” she was still largely supported and protected by her family.
In Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign: A Book of Applications, Edna Lyall described Mrs. Gaskell’s9 life and literarily achievement by quoting
a letter from Mrs. Gaskell’s daughter, Mrs. Holland. “It was wonderful…how her
6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8
Ibid.
9 Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) was a British novelist whose novels contained full and rich descriptions on the lives of many starata of society.Mrs. Gaskel had published six novels including : Mary Barton, Cranford, Ruth, North and South, Sylvias’s Lovers ,and
Wives and Daughters. Mrs. Gaskell was best known for her work on Brontë : The Life of Charlotte Brontë.
writing never interfered with her social or domestic duties. I think she was the best and most practical housekeeper I ever came across, and the brightest, most agreeable hostess.”10 Lyall continued to praise Gaskell on her own
accord,
Some people are fond of rashly asserting that the ideal wife and mother cares little and knows less about the world beyond the little world of home…Mrs. Gaskell, however took a keen interest in the questions of the day, and was a Liberal in politics; while it is quite evidential that neither these wider interest not her philanthropic work tended to interfere with the home life, which was clearly of the
noblest type. 11
Lyall’s and Holland’s opinions demonstrate that maintaining a well-functioning home and raising children were still very important characteristics of Victorian women. Though women were able to pursue careers of their own, these family-oriented characteristics encouraged Victorian women to stay within the domestic domain and bound them to it.
Emily Faithfull, a women’s rights activist during the Victorian era, also displayed a comparable notion of the roles of Victorian women. In The Mother at Home v. Public Nurseries, Faithfull stated,
The infant day nursery in fact is a clumsy attempt to supply the place of the mother and as those mothers who from a shortsighted and mistaken policy leave their families in order to earn a few daily pence violate one of Nature's laws the result must be disastrous to the infant population… nothing can compensate for the absence of the wife and mother from her home notwithstaning what political economists may have to say upon the subject.12
10
Margaret Oliphant, Lynn Linton, and Charlotte M Yonge, Women Novelists of Queen
Victoria’s Reign: A Book of Applications. (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1897), 143
11 Ibid.
Faithfull was the secretary of the Society for Promoting Employment of Women, the first women’s working rights activist organization. The Victorian family values were so engrained into society that even a secretary for a women’s working rights organization argued for women to remain at home to raise their children.
The Victorian culture was fascinated with the idea of the “holy mother” and projected it onto women. People of the Victorian era referred to
themselves as “woman worshipers”. Women were considered as their saviors, the embodiments of innocence and purity. Coventry Patmore’s poem, “The Angel in the House,” praises women for their domestic qualities. The name of the poem became a popular Victorian nickname for the ideal wife and woman.
John Ruskin in his work Of Queen’s Gardens described the perfect Victorian home life and women’s roles,
By her office, and place, she is protected from all danger and temptation. The man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter all perils and trial; …often he must be wounded, or subdued; often misled and ALWAYS hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by her…This is the true nature of home—it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division….And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always around her…home is yet wherever she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far round her…shedding its quiet light far, for those who else were homeless.13
Here Ruskin presented the roles for men and women in Victorian
Volume Ⅺ (May-October, 1868), 267. 13
society—e.g. men were to be outside of the house, adventuring and returning wounded to their home and women were to be inside the house, attending to household matters and nursing the men back to health. Ruskin’s description presented the view of how Victorian society expected women to be innocent, domestic, nurturing and protected from the outside world. These qualities were believed to prevent women from the terror of the outside by keeping them inside the home.
In 1870, the Married Women Property Acts14 provided Victorian women with the financial security and the courage to step outside the house. The social changes, both legal and economic, prompted the growth of women’s desire to explore other parts of the world. Due to the expansion of the empire and the economic growth, women finally had the chance to experience travel. As Miller pointed out in The Imperial Feminine, “For women, moments of travel—the leaving behind of the metropolitan centre—are experiential manifestations of their own practical and ideological marginalizations.”15
Travel and travel writings have offered women an alternative way to explore and express themselves.
Women Travelers and their writings
Victorian social convention drew the image of a safe, protected home life for women and how treacherous life was outside of the home. It discouraged and reduced Victorian women’s desire to venture out. Therefore, there was lack of the presence of women in the domain of travel and the discourse
14 "An Act to Amend the Law Relating to the Property of Married Women". 15
Melissa Lee Miller, The Imperial Feminine : Victorian Women Travelers in Late
related to the experience of leaving home16.
With the spread of railway road and the development of the steamboat, the means of transportations gradually improved and the cause for caution decreased. Travel became safer, faster and cheaper for people. As the Victorian age progressed, travel was no longer seen as the privilege for men. These technological improvements and social and economic changes
provided some British women with the freedom to travel. Especially for the upper class, travel became more accessible to women.
The increasing possibilities of travel because of the improved means and increased variety of destinations expanded the assigned domestic for Victorian women. From the two houses provided by her fathers and husbands, her boundaries expanded to summer and winter vacation houses and to the wider world when accompanied her husband. However, women still could not travel alone. They needed to be accompanied by family members or female
chaperones. Travel for women was still regarded as highly risky and
dangerous. Victorian women’s mobility was constrained not only by Victorian social expectations until 1870 but also because of financial limitations.17 The
amount of money that travel required was the main reason why most of the Victorian women travelers were upper class and middle class, intellectual or eccentric women.
In 1889, Lillias Campbell Davidson in Hints to Lady Travellers pointed out that continental travel for Victorian women was “too common to excite
16 廖炳惠，《關鍵詞200：文學與批評研究的通用辭彙編》(台北：麥田文化，2003 ), 265 17 梁一萍，〈女性／地圖／帝國：聶華苓、綢仔絲、玳咪圖文跨界〉，《中外文學》第二十七卷第 五期 86-87
remark.”18 Davidson cites two changes for Victorian women travelers: first,
travel became very accessible to the women and second, that Victorian women travelers started to explore the more dangerous, exotic places in the world.
By the 1870’s, there were amazing numbers of British women travelers who had explored some of the most remote and secluded parts of the world. Examples include Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake’s grand continental travels (1827-1870) and the Indian born Anna Leonowens (1831) travels to Aden (1847), Egypt and Palestine (1849), Perth (1849), and Singapore (1857). She also stayed in Bangkok (1862) as the Royal governess, taught in New York (1880) and journeyed around Russia (1881). Harriet Martineau traveled to Egypt, Palestine and Syria (1846). Nina Mazuchelli traveled to the Alps and India (1869). Lady Margaret Brook became the Ranee of Sarawak in Africa in 1869. Anne Blunt travelled extensively to Arabia and the Middle East (1870’s). Isabella Bird Bishop took a long voyage to Australia, Hawaii (1872), Japan, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia (1890), India, Persia, Kurdistan, Turkey, Baghdad and Tehran (1886-1887). Lady Florence Caroline Dixie travelled to Patagonia in South America (1878-1879), South Africa, and Zululand
(1880-1881). Emily Innes stayed in Malaya for sixty years. Gertrude Bell travelled and explored in Iraq, Jordan Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Arabia (1892-1925). Mary Kingsley journeyed through West Africa
(1893-1895).
According to Shirley Forster by the end of the nineteenth-century there were only a few parts of the globe that remained unvisited by women
18
Shirley Foster, Across New Worlds: Nineteenth Century Women Travelers and Their
travelers.19 The Victorian women travelers’ destinations matched the
expansion of the British Empire: India (1617), Egypt (1799), Singapore (1819), China (1839), South Africa, Zulu (1840’s) Canada (1834). With the expansion of the Empire, Victorian women followed the lead and journeyed out.
The increasing numbers of women travelers did not imply that Victorian society had changed its perceptions toward women’s behavior. Travel, indeed for the Victorian women was one of the most direct ways to re-discover the subjectivity of women to Victorian standards. Mill stated, “they [The Victorian women travelers] can explored with a wilder range of subject positions along both gendered and racial lines.” 20 However, compared to their male
counterparts, many of the Victorian women travelers were well-protected from the outside world and were accompanied by family members or chaperons when they traveled.
Since the action of travelling itself signified an unwomanly behavior, Victorian women travelers had to live up to Victorian womanhood while traveling. Foster and Mills in Anthology of Women’s travel writing pointed out that the emphasis on “being a lady” accompanied Victorian women travelers. Therefore even for the most adventurous women travelers, there were still social norms and pressures they had to follow. For instance, in one of the letters Isabella Lucy Bird sent to her sister in A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, Bird elaborated her daily routine in detailed.
…and by seven I am dressed, have folded the blankets, and swept the floor….After breakfast, I draw more water and wash one or two garments
19 Ibid., 4 20
Shirley Foster and Sara Mills (ed.) Anthology of Women’s Travel Writing. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 10
daily, taking care that there are no witness of my inexperience.. …The rest of the day I spend in mending, knitting, writing to you, and the various odds and ends which arise when one has to do all for oneself.21
From Bird’s description, her daily routine in the Rocky Mountains did not seem to be different than other Victorian women. She cleaned the house and took care of domestic chores. Similar descriptions of Victorian women
engaging in household chores while traveling were very common.
For the Victorian woman traveler, it was important to present herself properly at all times in front of everyone. For example, Victorian women travel writers portrayed the station of women in their description of women’s attire. Mary Kingsley created the perfect image of a Victorian woman in which she was always dressed in full Victorian skirts complet with hat and umbrella.22 Impulsia Gushington, a fictional character created by Lady Helen Dufferin was a widow who accompanied her son in travels up the Nile. In Figure1, even on the occasion of camel riding, Impulsa Gushington was still properly
dressed---ankle-length full body dress with her feather hat, shawl, and umbrella.
21 Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. (London: J. Murray, 1881), 46 22
Monica Anderson,Women and the Politics of Travel, 1870-1914. (Madison, Wis.: Fairleigh Dickson University Press, 2006), 200
Figure1. “An Unprotected Female in the East” From Harper’s New Monthly Magazine No.160. Vol.27 (September 1863):445.
Another example was Jesse Ackermann in The World through a Woman’s Eyes where Ackermann described her visit to the mast-head:
I drew forth the garment that always forms part of my wardrobe, a divided skirt— used only on special occasions—over which I put only a jacket that my feet might be perfectly free. I tied a scarf about my ears, for the night was chilly…23
Ackermann was so brave that with the company of a young captain and his friend, she climbed up the rope ladder and visited the mast-head.
Ackermann understood the importance of her choice of clothing given the nature of the scenario. Therefore, Ackermann chose a “divided skirt” and wore
a scarf on her head. In Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth
Century, Adams W.H. Davenport depicted how uncomfortable Countess Dora D’Istria was in her masculine looking traveling dress “to which I found it difficult to grow accustomed.”24 Baroness von Zedlitz in Woman’s Life also showed her disapproval towards the mannish new women who dressed with “kickers and gaiters”.25 Victorian women travel writers used descriptions of their clothing to assure their conformity to femininity and home culture.
Another strategy which Victorian women travel writers often applied in the form of preface was apologia, self-mockery or expressed hesitance to publish their works. By apologizing, women travel writers could escape from the male nineteenth-century travel writings style dominated by ‘instruction’ and the ‘rational bureaucracy of editors and agents’26. By self- mockery, women travel writers avoided being “scientific” and “objective” within the text and assured their audience of their womanhood. Jesse Ackerman in the preface of The World through A Woman’s Eyes stated:
Happily, the day has passed when it was the fashion for authors to apologize for their printed works...it is left to those who may glance through these pages to determine to which class this little volume belongs… Most of the papers comprised in this book appeared in the Ladies' Home Companion… were penned under numerous difficulties of time and place, and with no attempt at literary finish. In short, they are simply a series of rambling notes culled from many chapters in a rambling life.27
24
Davenport, Adams W.H. Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century. (New York: E. P. Dutton&Co, 1903), 30.
25
Baroness von Zedlitz. “An Interview with Miss Mary Kinsley” in Woman’s Life 1896, 432. 26
Pordzik adopted E. Mendenlson’s description in “Baedecker’s Universe,” 1985, 383. 27 Ackermann, The World Through A Woman’s Eyes, 8.
Ackerman included a joyful note that in the preface that “the day has passed when it was the fashion for authors to apologize”, which demonstrated two things: first, it was common for Victorian women travel writers to apologize in their printed work for the behavior which was contrary to Victorian femininity; second, Victorian femininity started to loosen and there were more women beginning to travel and write about it. Even though the “fashion” had passed, Ackerman still applied the common literary strategy that Victorian women travelers often employed of self-devaluation. Ackerman characterized her work as “a series of rambling notes.”
In conclusion, for Victorian women travelers it was important to maintain their womanhood and portray the ideal of Victorian femininity, since the nature of travel was considered un-feminine. Therefore in Victorian women travel writings, one finds the affirmation of Victorian family values, lifestyle, and expectations for women as well as evidence of the author’s self-devaluation or self-mockery as an apology for the deviation from the norm presented by travel.
Women Travel Writers in China
Julia Kuehn in China of the Tourists: Women and the Grand Tour of the Middle Kingdom explained how the opportunity of traveling to China became available for Victorian women. Kuehn stated “through the existence of a British stronghold in China it became possible for “[Victorian women] to explore the country and venture into areas hitherto unfamiliar to Westerners.”28 Lots of the
28 Julia Kuehn,“China of the Tourists: Women and the Grand Tour of the Middle Kingdom.＂ in Asian Crossings: Travel Writing on China, Japan and Southeast Asia. (ed.)Steve Clark, Paul Smethurst. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), 115
Victorian women travelers who had visited China were either missionary, or family of diplomats, soldiers, and merchants.
Kuehn employed the data of Chadwyck-Healey’s bibliography of “Nineteenth-Century Books on China” and found that
“of the 733 books on China published in the (long) nineteenth century, only about ten percent (categorized as ‘Geography as they map and describe the country’) were travelogues…The large bulk of works on China is by (British) men and about ‘Politics and government’, ‘Economics and commerce’,
‘Anthropology and sociology’, ‘History of China’, ‘Religion and philosophy’, and ‘Literature and art’… there are fewer than twenty women writers mentioned in the bibliography…but it is noteworthy that their (travel) writings emerge chiefly from around 1880 when their male counterparts focused visibly on
socio-political and economic questions concerning China.”29
Chadwyck-Healey’s data and Kuehn’s analysis noticed the fact that only a few women travel writers ever published their writings on the topic of China. The male-female author ratio was so great that it was almost 36:1. For every thirty-six books, only one was written by woman. Nicholas Clifford in: A Truthful Impression of the Country: British and American Travel Writing in China
1880-194930 also made a similar observation. The difference (books on China that were written by different genders) was caused by the fact that compared to men, there were less English women travelers in China.
Another similar result was found in the bibliography from One Artificial Paradise, Two Cultures of Opium Consumption : Comparative Study of the
29 Ibid. 113-114
30 Nicholas Clifford, A Truthful Impression of the Country: British and American Travel Writing
19th Century Europe and the Late Imperial China31 project. There were about
four hundreds and thirty books regarding the theme of China including travel journals that were published in English. Among the English language books, there were fifteen female authors which are the following: Jessie A.
Ackermann, Isabella Lucy Bird, Mary Isabella Bryson, Julia Corner, Gretchen Mae Fitkin, Constance Gordon-Cumming, Emily Hahn, Mrs. Hervey, Mrs. Thomas Francis Hughes, Alicia Helen Neva Bewicke Little, Mrs. D.D Muter, Helen Sanford Coan Nevius, Ida Pfeiffer, Eliza Ramsay, Emile Rocher, Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, and Martha Noyes Williams. Most of these female writers had only published one book, Isabella Lucy Bird, Mrs. Archibald Little, and Constance Gordon-Cumming were the more prolific authors. They all published at least three books on the topic of China.
Kuehn used Isabella Lucy Bird and Constance Gordon Cumming to categorize Victorian women travelers to China into two types, “[the] traveler who travels accompanied with dangers and discomfort; [the] tourist who travels with entertainment, comfort, and relaxation.”32 Isabella Lucy Bird was looking for unbeaten tracks. Her destinations were Tibet and the upper part of the Yangtze River where the inhabitants were unfamiliar with European
communities. Bird often traveled with Chinese people. Constance
Gordon-Cumming traveled to Peking, Shanghai, Canton, and Hong Kong where there were a substantial amount of European communities. In comparison with Bird’s experience, Cumming’s means of travel and
31 One Artificial Paradise, Two Cultures of Opium Consumption : Comparative Study of the 19th Century Europe and the Late Imperial China is a project that was founded by National Science Council in 2005 and 2006. This project was lead by Professor Der-Liang, Chiu and one of its contributions was to create an bibliography of nineteenth-century’s westerners’ travel writings on China.
companions were a lot different.
Kuehn neglected the third type of Victorian women travelers in
China—long-time residents such as Mrs. Archibald Little. Long-time residents combined the attributes of both traveler and tourist, she would travel to more desolate areas while maintaining regular residence at open port cities. Mrs. Little had traveled to most parts of China and was also active among the European community at Shanghai, Peking, Hankow, and Chungking.
Among many Victorian women travel writers in China, Mrs. Archibald Little possessed three important qualities that set her apart from other women travelers and became the subject in this thesis. First, most Victorian women travelers did not have the opportunities and the will to associate, mingle, and socialize with Chinese locals including Chinese women. In the case of
Constance Gordon Cumming, Cumming often avoided direct contact with Chinese locals.33 In fact, most of the English diplomats or merchants’ wives often engaged more in hosting parties34. Therefore the only direct contact they
might have was to communicate with their Chinese servants, cooks, and maids.35 However, due to Mrs. Archibald Little’s vigorous effort for the
Unbinding Foot Movement, it had created many opportunities and opened many doors for her. For instance, she had been invited to many different dinner parties that were hosted by Chinese women in order to discuss girls/women situations, life conditions and education36.
Secondly, Mrs. Archibald Little had published ten books that were related to China and countless articles related to China. Such a great deal of writing
33
Ibid.120 34
In A.W.S.Wingate’s One Chevalier in China, had a lot of detailized description about the British women’ everyday lifes in China.
35
Kuehn, “China of the Tourists” 120
provided researchers with rich and vivid descriptions of Mrs. Little’s state of mind during her twenty years in China. Last but not least of the reasons is Mrs. Archibald Little’s personality. Mrs. Archibald Little believed that a healthy body would bring a healthy state of mind. Hence, she often promoted the importance of exercise, especially of walking. In nineteenth-century China, Chinese
women were obligated to stay at home and could not to be seen on the street. With this social convention, it would have been dangerous for Western women to walk on the street by themselves;37 therefore they often traveled China in sedan-chairs with the curtain down38. Nevertheless, Mrs. Archibald Little found
her own way to mingle with the locals and made them accustomed to her presence.39
37 Mrs. Archibald Litte, Intimate China,. 81-82 . 38
In Mrs. Thomas Francis Hughes’ Among the Sons of Han : Notes of a Six Years’
Residence in Various Parts of China and Formosa , there were six different sources through out the book describing her sedan chair experience. Ida Pfeiffer inA Woman’s
Journey Round the World: From Vienna to Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia and Asia Minor had described her sedan chair experience in China. Mrs. D.D. Muter also
mentioned how she traveled through China on the sedan chair in Travels and adventures of
an officer's wife in India, China, and New Zealand. Also see, Jessie A, Ackermann, The World Through A Woman’s Eyes. 134-135.
Chapter Two: The Littles in China
Figure 2. Photo of Mrs. Archibald Little from The Land of the Blue Gown. Childhood and Early Writing Career
Alicia Little, often had been referred to as Mrs. Archibald Little, was the wife of a British merchant, Mr. Archibald Little. Alicia Little’s maiden name was Alicia Helen Neva Bewicke which she shorted to A.E.N. Bewicke as her pen name.
Alicia Little was born in 1845 on Madeira Island off the Portugal coast. She was the daughter of Calverly Bewicke of Hallaton Hall, Leicestershire and
Mary Amelia Hollingsworthin40. Alicia Little had one older and one younger
sister, three younger brothers, and was the second of the six children.41 There was not much information regarding the Bewicke family or Alicia Little’s life before she got married. Even so, in The Private Life of Old Hong Kong: Western Women in the British Colony 1841-1941, Hoe mentioned that Alicia Little was educated by her father at home.42 It was common for Victorian women to receive their education at home while Victorian men were being sent away to school. The educational difference between boys and girls was
caused and defined by the Victorian social consensus and expectations. Therefore sons were sent away for higher education and experienced the world while daughters stayed at home to learn how to be a good wife and remained innocent and inexperienced to the outside world.
Alicia Little spent her time on Madeira Island and later returned to England at the age of 23. The reason for her returning was to find an eligible husband. After returning to England, instead of engaging herself in the marriage market, Alicia Little published her first novel, Flirts and Flirts; or, A Season at Ryde (1868). Though Flirts and Flirts did not draw much attention and was barely mentioned in any literature publications. Flirts and Flirts was notable, however, for its length—two volumes and almost 300 pages each—and its topic. It is the story of a young beautiful woman, Kathleen O’Grady, and her mother, Lady Killowen. Lady Killowen was eager to help her daughter find a suitable
40 Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, (Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996),673
41
Elisabeth J Croll, Wise Daughters from Foreign Lands: European Women Writers in China (London: Winchester, MA: Pandora, 1989),24.
42
Susanna Hoe, The Private Lfe of Old Hong Kong; Western Women in the British Colony
husband regardless who or what she might hurt during the process. The story ended tragically with Miss O’Grady’s admirer committing suicide. Mrs. Little used an insider perspective to portray and criticize the Victorian marriage market, the ultimate goal of which was to find a proper marriage partner for young women. It was 500 pages full of descriptions of young Victorian women in search of suitable husbands.
Alicia Little’s first novel could be seen as her own interpretations and observations of the Victorian marriage market. Moreover, it might have been her way of avoiding that social tradition. Instead of marching into the social scene and looking for an eligible husband, Alicia Little started her career as a writer. During the Victorian age, upper and middle class women were expected to stay within the domestic domain. Therefore it was very difficult for these women to enter any kind of professions or to support themselves. Elaine Showalter depicted the Victorian middle class women’s professional market in this way:
Middle class women had very few alternative occupations to wiring in the nineteenth century. Other than teaching, their best possibilities were in the business end of publishing; many also worked as publisher’s reader and copy editors…Unmarried women were increasingly drawn to writing as a means of
support.43
Mrs. Little’s choice of career was common for the middle class Victorian women who desired to escape from the traditional role of women and wanted who wanted to be the “new women” as they referred to it. The prolific numbers
43
Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to
of her publications support the likelihood that Alicia Little was self-sufficient and independent through her career as a writer.
Little’s marriage was the divide that separates her writing career into two different stages. Before Alicia Little married Archibald Little in 1886, she used the name A.E.N. Bewicke as her pen name and had published nine
semi-fictional novels which were all about Victorian women. Please see Index 2, Mrs. Archibald Little’s works, 1868-1885.
At this stage, Little’s novels revolved around women’s given roles and their positions in society. She transformed what she had seen in the British upper-middle-class social life into a series of witty and sarcastic melodramas. According to Croll, Alica Little’s novels were never some light romance which you would read while having tea. As an author, instead of making
happily-ever-after fairy tale stories, Little presented more real stories with a bit of a dark twist. As a social observer, Little used her novels as the means to discuss her concern for the legal and social disabilities that the Victorian women were often facing.
Little also heavily criticized the Victorian mothers who often educated their daughter in proper behavior and how to dress gracefully in order to find a socially appropriate husband even when they knew nothing more about the man than his family fortune and their appearance44. Under the general social
convention, finding a wealthy husband became a very important part of young women’s life. As for young men, they simply had to be ‘gentlemen.’ One of the recurring motifs throughout her writing was the importance of meaningful work. In her stories, there were often characters who were doomed to live a
miserable life regardless their gender, simply because their lack of diligence. Little’s publications attracted a considerable amount of attention. Onwards! But Whither? A Life Story was the one that made her well-known but the book was not critically acclaimed. The British Quarterly Review commented, “The improbabilities of this story are extreme, and the style in many portions of it is stilted and inaccurate; and as the ‘Study of Life’ or of an oddly-assorted groups of lives, it is obscure and indefinite.”45 Little’s next work Margret Travers
received great reviews. The Sunday Times commented, “An excellent novel! It is thoroughly fresh, interesting, and entertaining, and has incident enough to keep up unflagging attention,” and The Academy commented, “written with a good deal of power.”46
The Englishwoman’s Review praised Miss Standish
and by the Bay of Naples with a similar review. “These stories are written with a vigour and spirit that awakes the reader's interest and carries him on to the end with unflagging attention.”47
Mother Darling, Little’s last novel at this stage was the most mentioned and controversial. It was allegedly based on her eldest sister Caroline’s
unfortunate marriage. The story was about an obedient young woman married to a stylish wastrel who had an affair and moved his mistress back home. In the end of the story, the young woman not only lost her marriage, property, and fortune; she also lost the custody of her children. Little’s intention was to create a little book that could raise the public attention to such matters and support the Married Women’s Property rights. According to Thurin, the publication of
45 Anomalous. ‘Onwards! But Whither? A Life Study. By A.E.N. Bewicke,’ in The British
Quarterly Review Volume 63, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1876. P.253.
46
Mrs. John Kent Spender, ‘Both in the Wrong’ in The Academy and Literature Volume 14, 1878. 31
47
Anomalous. ‘Miss Standish and By the Bay of Naples By AEN Bewicke.’ in The
this novel made a considerable impact on the cause48.
Little was also an activist in the feminist movement during 1870’s and 1880’s. According to the Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, Little “was lecturing, writing pamphlets, and organizing parliamentary campaigns for passage of the Women’s Property Act, and for women’s suffrage.”49 Little was
also the sectary of the London Ladies’ Association50. Due to her enthusiasm, she was given the opportunity to speak in front of the annual congresses of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science on the topic of
supporting the law which would provide women with greater rights for custody and guardianship of children51.
Little’s choice of career and her devotion to the women’s rights movement showed that she was not an average Victorian woman. Her personality and professional aspirations may also have contributed to her late marriage.
Mrs. Archibald Little’s twenty years in China (1886-1907)
In 1886, the forty-one-years-old Alicia Helen Neva Bewicke married Archibald John Little who was forty-eight years old. Their marriage changed both of their lives completely. For Mrs. Little, not only did she emigrate to China; she also switched the focus of her writing career from the Victorian women’s movement to her life and travels in China. With Mrs. Little’s encouragement support and company, Mr. Little managed to navigate the Yangtze river and
48
Susan Schoenbauer Thurin, Victorian Travelers and the Opening of China, 1842-1907. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999), 164
49
Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, 673
50 Scott Benjamin, A State Iniquity: Its Rise, Extension and Overthrow, (London:Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & co.), 1890.418
settle in the western part of China.
Little’s marriage is interesting and worthy of further comment for several reasons. Getting married at the age of forty was not a common Victorian behavior. The average marriage age was twenty-one. Under rigid Victorian social convention, it was hard for women to follow their dreams outside of family life. Alicia Little’s marriage might be understood as a rational decision. By marrying Archibald Little, she gained the opportunity to venture out to the romantic East where she could live with less of the Victorian feminine constrain. With the difficulty of finding a partner that would permit a freer life style, it was understandable that she got marriage at such late age.
Shortly after their wedding, the Little’s started their journey to China. After two months on the ship, they arrived at Shanghai. Mrs. Little imagined
Shanghai as “Everyone almost knows what Shanghai is like. It has been admirably described over and over…with the rows of European houses….only a little dearer in London.”52 When she arrived in Shanghai, she found it very
different than she had imagined.
“Now, darkened by the smoke of over thirty factories, it is flooded by an ever-increasing Chinese population, who jostle with
Europeans in the thoroughfare, till it seems as if the struggle between the two races would be settled in the streets of Shanghai, and the European got driven to the wall.”53
Even though Mrs. Little first impression of Shanghai was very different than what she had imagined it would be, the most disappointing fact was the darken and over-crowed streets. For Mrs. Little, China should be “the land of
52
Mrs. Archibald Little, Intimate China 1-2. 53 Mrs. Archibald Little, Intimate China 2
the blue gown,” and Shanghai of all cities should be cleaner, with more western style housing than what she had seen. However, like Mrs. Little described her imaginations “got driven to the wall.” Mrs. Little commented that Shanghai’s China town “enjoys the reputation of being very dirty and
disgusting.”54
Later the Little’s traveled and settled down in Chunking(重慶), which is located at Sichuan province(四川省) in the far western region of China. The British Empire had just granted access to Chunking a little over a year earlier; therefore, there were not many European residents, not to mention settlements. Without the foreign community, Mrs. Archibald Little’s life in Chunking was quite different than that of average European ladies. She studied Chinese, taught Chinese children English, took photographs, and traveled extensively up and down the Yangtze river with her husband. She explored different parts of interior China, which was normally inaccessible to expatriated women other than missionaries.
In Chunking, Little made friends with a few Chinese families and gained access to a closer look at the Chinese women’s way of living, mannerisms, value system and customs, which were less known to the European
community. The reason for the lack of information on these matters was because of Chinese social convention. China, like England, also had strong and powerful social roles and expectation for women. Chinese women were expected to stay within the household domain and be limited from all public spheres. Even when paying a call to a Chinese family, Western men were only allowed to stay in the outer quarter where the dining room was. The more private living area was in the inner quarters. Western men were excluded from
the Chinese home life and Chinese women were excluded from all the public affairs. As a result, there were only descriptions about Chinese women’s
bound feet, female infanticide, prostitution, etc. 55 Other womanly experiences
were unknown and ignored. The lack of British women travelers led to the lack of familiarity with Chinese women. Therefore, Mrs. Little, as a western woman, had a great advantage for gaining access to Chinese household domestic space.56
During her time in China, Mrs. Little travel extensively to different parts of China including Mountain Omi(峨嵋山), Peking(北京), Tibet(西藏), Mongolia(蒙古), Hong Kong(香港), Gold Diamond mountain, Lichuan(利川), Peiho(白河碉堡), Tientsin(天津), Chefoo(煙台), the great walls(長城),Ninpo(寧波), Wuhu(蕪湖), Ichang(宜昌), Fengtu(酆都), Macao(澳門), Swatow(汕頭), Hankow(漢口), Wuchang(武昌), Canton(廣東), Amoy(廈門), Foochow(福州), Hangchow(杭州), Soochow(蘇州) . Little published her travels around China in various newspapers and magazines, and was invited to give lectures before the Geographical Society57. During her twenty years in China, she was president of Tien Tsu Hui(天足會), Anti-footbinding Society of China and Vice-President of the women’s Conference at Shanghai58.
Archibald Little in China (1859-1907)
Mr. Archibald John Little’s long journey to the East had changed not only his but also Mrs. Little’s life. During his stay in China, Archibald John Little was
55
Croll, 11 56
Ibid.
57 ‘LITTLE, Mrs. Archibald’, Who’s who in the Far East, 1906-1907. (Hong Kong: China Mail,1906), 202
known for his adventurous travels and business in China especially his
success in passing the rapids of the Yang Tzu River by steamboat.59 Mr. Little ran the mail service through the Yang Tzu River and owned a coal mine near Chungking. Archibald Little was not only a prosperous merchant in China but also a politically active figure. He assisted the late Qing Chinese Empire to repulse the Tai Ping rebellion (太平天國) and later served on Shanghai
Municipal Council(上海公共租界工部局). 60 Archibald Little was familiar to the
political elites of the South-Eastern part of China such as Cheng Chih-tung(張 之洞) and Li Hung-Chang(李鴻章).
Archibald Little was also a fellow of R.G.S (The Royal Geographical Society) and R.C.I. (Royal Colonial Institute). He was learned and fluent in Chinese. As a result, Mr. Little was generally regarded as an expert on China affairs and often was asked to deliver speeches and lectures on it. Mr. Little was also the editor of the North China Herald(北華捷報), and published many articles relating to China, for example: Western China, Ex Oriente Lux, Two Cities, The Value of Tibet, The Partition of China, The Dangers of the Upper Yangtze, The Chinese Drama in the Quarterly, North American Reviews, Fortnightly, Spectator, Asian Quarterly, Geographical Journal and Nineteenth Century, etc61; and five books62.
Archibald Little was born in London on April 19, 1838. His father was
59
Obituary, "Archibald Little.”, The Geographical Journal. Vol. ⅹⅹⅻ- July to December. London: Royal Geographical Society, 1908, 629.
60 Anomalous. Who’s who in the Far East, 1906-07 June. (Hong Kong: China Mail, 1906), 201
61 Editorial Note in Gleanings from Fifty Years in China,ⅺ. 62 See Index 3.
William John Little, a notable physician and surgeon. Instead of continuing his education in England, Archibald Little completed his education at Berlin and was employed as a tea-tester in Hong Kong by a German company in 1859. Three years later, Mr. Little started his own business and partnered with another Shanghai based company, Latimer & Little Co. Though the company was not the best investment and only lasted for a short period of time,
Archibald Little was not daunted by it and continued his merchant career with his brother R.W. Little in Shanghai. Meanwhile, Archibald joined the Volunteers to assist repelling the attack of Tai Ping rebels (太平天國)63. He traveled
extensively to the Tai Ping rebellion occupied regions and returned to Shanghai in 1861 to join the Volunteer Artillery (洋槍隊)64.
With the opening of more treaty ports, Archibald Little shifted his focus from Shanghai to the south-western part of China, Chungking(重慶). By combining his hobby, yachting, and his business interesting in Chunking, Archibald in 1884 initiated the Yang Tzu river winter steamboat transporting business from Hankow (漢口) to Ichang (宜昌), according to R.S. Gundry65. There had not been a steamboat that could navigate Yang Tzu during winter, Archibald Little was the first person to succeed. With this successful
experience, Archibald Little designed, commissioned and piloted his own steamboat and made his first ascent of the Upper Yangtze rapids in 189866. After his success in navigating the Yang Tzu river, Archibald Little saw Szechwan as an untouched and promising land, which had great natural resources and not yet been excavated. Mr. Little soon established the ChungkingTrading Company which initially operated as a logistic company
63 Ibid. 64
Ibid.
65 C.S.Gundry, Foreword to Gleanings from Fifty Years in China,( London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1910), ⅵ.
and later moved on to the bristle business in 189867. The same year, Archibald Little partnered with some Chinese and started exploiting the coal and iron mine at Lung Wang Tang, thirty miles from Chunking68. The coal mine was mentioned as “the best coal-mine in the world after Cardiff”69. At 1906,
Archibald Little’s health started to deteriorate, therefore the Littles moved back to England and he passed away two year later.70
Mrs. Archibald Little’s publications:
Susan Morgan in The Sphere of Interest indicated,
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century among the most well-known British accounts of China were the books of Archibald Little, and Alicia (Mrs. Archibald) Little, Lady Constance Gordon- Cumming, Gorge Morrison (who was Australian), Archibald Colquhoun, John Thompson (verbal and pictorial), and Isabella Bird Bishop. 71
This was an indicator of Mrs. Little’s popularity and authority for her works on China. Mrs. Little continued her career as a writer and started publishing her works under the name Mrs. Archibald Little and Alicia Helen Neva Little in the mid 1890’s. From her arrival in China, Little began to write more than just fictional novels. She started to write non-fiction. Little was very good at describing what she had seen, sensed and experienced and was known for her ability to clearly present what she saw, smelled, and heard72. Even though
Little changed her writing subject, what remained the same was her keen
67 G. C. Allen, et al, Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, China And
Japan. (London: Routledge, 1954), 83.
68 Ibid., 291
69 Editorial Note in Gleanings from Fifty Years in China,ⅻⅰ. 70 Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, 675
71
Susan Morgan , “The Sphere of Interest :Framing Late Nineteenth-Century China in Words
and Pictures with Isabella Bird.” in A Century of Travels in China: Critical Essays on Travel Writing from the 1840s to 1940s. Kerr, Douglas and Kuehn Julia (ed.),(Hong Kong: Hong
Kong University Press, 2007), 106
observation of social interactions. As in her earlier novels, Little used her works as a mean to voice the injustice she witnessed. Little’s works on China was designed to serve as the bridge for expatriates or people back in England to understand China and its people.
Little carefully presented the local Chinese and the expatriate community regarding of their way of living and value systems,73 and tried to show how much they were alike74. However, she differed from the British male
counterpart writers. Little used many anecdotes and descriptions to allow her readers to help her readers to be more familiar with the Chinese life style.
During her twenty years in China, Little published four novels with the background set in China and six non-fiction works on China and its culture75.
Among all Mrs. Little’s books, Intimate China: The Chinese as I have seen them and The Land of the Blue Gown were by far the most mentioned.
Intimate China was in print twice (1899, 1901) and was translated into Chinese (親密地接觸中國) in 2008; The Land of the Blue Gown was in print for four times (1901, 1902, 1904 1909) and was translated into Chinese (穿著藍袍的國 度) in 2006. Round about my Peking Garden (我的北京花園) was also
translated into Chinese in 2006. Elibron Classic publishing house had reprinted Intimate China, and Out in China in 2001, and Li Hung-chang: His Life and Times in 2002.
73 For further information about how the expatriate view Chinese and the difference between the East and the West, see John McCarthy, "China and the West" (The Quarterly Review, 163 [1886]: 65-85) and "Western China-Its Products and Trade" (The Quarterly Review, 171 [1890]: 205-34).
74
Mrs. Archibald Little, My diary in a Chinese farm, 62. 75 See Index 2, 1894-1906.
Under Little’s sharp and witty pen, she criticized some western travelers as twenty-years-in-China-and-don’t-speak-a-word-of-the-language men who did not bother to learn about the local customs and who stereotypically group the locals76. She also criticized the expatriates who considered that they were superior than Chinese, like Mrs. Jenkins in A Marriage to China. When they traveled up the Yantze river, the group had to watch while Chinese trackers (縴 夫) towed the boat against the strong current. Mrs. Jenkins comments:
I never know what you [Dr. Maxwell] mean by talking about Chinese courage and all that.... These men don't really pull. They are afraid to. Have you watched them rowing? I have not the patience, it is so ridiculous. And have you ever seen one catch a rope yet? Why, they turn away, and hide their faces, just as a woman would. Then the way they throw too! Oh, they are all a set of women rather than men.77
Race issues had long been one of Little’s main concerns, exposing especially hypocrisy displayed by expatriates towards the offspring of
expatriate men and Chinese mothers. Little also advised the need for mutual recognition and respect between people from different cultures.
Little’s choice of pen name might reflect the Victorian social expectations for women. Among her eleven publications which were about China, only the first four were published under the name Mrs. Archibald Little. The Land of the Blue Gown was published with both Mrs. Archibald Little and Alicia Helen Neva Little. The last five were all published under Alicia Helen Neva Little. Note and
76
Mrs. Archibald Little, Intimate China, 5
Inquiry once mentioned that Alicia Little preferred others to address her as Mrs. Archibald Little rather than Alicia Little.
Since the Victorian social convention at the time conceived women as tame, submissive and domestic, traveling to a foreign land without the company of family or chaperon would be considered as eccentric and
outlandish. On one hand, using Mrs. Archibald Little as pen name indicated the companionship of Mr. Archibald Little and also increased the creditability, reliability, and truthfulness of the book. On the other, Mrs. Little’s choice of pen name underscored the unstable nature and the duality of Victorian women travelers’ identities. As a women’s rights activist, Little proclaimed women’s rights to property and to voting, etc but when faced with the issue of an appellation, her name disappeared and was unseen.
Publications related to Mrs. Archibald Little
New York Times described her book, Intimate China, as “a singularly entertaining volume, throwing much additional light on China. The illustrations which are many, are of great help to the text.”78 They also depicted The Land
of the Blue Gown as ”Many Pleasing Narratives of Travel…Mrs. Little was a well-known person in the Far East on account of her crusade against
foot-binding as practiced by Chinese women in all parts of the empire.”79 The Evening Post wrote, “Mrs. Little wields a graceful pen, and from long years of residence is thoroughly conversant with things Chinese.”80 The Cambridge Public Library Bulletin Catalogue contributed, “In her knowledge of the real
78
‘China. Mrs. Archibald Little’s Book. Describing the People as She Has Seen Them.’ in
New York Times : June 10th,1899.
79
Fritz von Holm, “China from Various Points of View.” New York Times, January 1st, 1910. 80 ‘Current Literature’ in Evening Post :February 24th,1900.
China, Mrs. Archibald Little admittedly stands unrivalled among living European women.”81
Little’s Unbinding Foot movement was very successful and influential. Therefore, Little was invited to deliver lectures before the Geographical Society of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, South Shields and at the Glasgow Exhibition,82 which rarely
happened during Victorian time.
Little was often quoted in academic writings. The books and papers that mentioned and discussed Little’s Unbinding Foot movement are listed as follow: Barbarians and Mandarins83, Wise Daughters from Foreign Lands:
European Women Writers in China, Victorian Travelers and the Opening of China, Chinese Footbinding: The History of Erotic Custom, A Century of Travels in China: Critical Essays on Travel Writing from the 1840s to 1940s, Dragon lady, Cinderella’s Sisters, ‘Bound to Be Represented: Theorizing/ Fetishizing Footbinding’84, “Women Travellers and Their Writings.”85, ‘Asian Awakenings : Alicia Little and the Limits of Orientalism.’86, Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account. 87, ‘The Anti-footbinding Movement in Late Ch’ing China: Indigenous Development and Western Influence’88, Gender
81
Cambridge Public Library Bulletin Volumeⅹⅰ, 1906, 59. 82 Ibid.
83 Hoe, 226. 84
Angela Zito, ‘Bound to Be Represented: Theorizing/ Fetishizing Footbinding’ in Embodied
Modernities: corporeality, representation, and Chinese cultures, (Hawaii: University of
Hawaii Press, 2006), 21-41 85 Foster, 1-27
86
Shanyn Fiske, ‘Asian Awakenings : Alicia Little and the Limits of Orientalism.’ in Victorian Literature and Culture, Issue 37, 2009,11-25
87
Gerry Mackie, Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account in American Sociological Review, Vol. 61, No. 6, 999-1017
88
Chia-lin Pao Tao, ‘The Anti-footbinding Movement in Late Ch’ing China: Indigenous
and Sinology: Shifting Western Interpretations of Footbinding, 1300-189089, Secularizing the Pain of Footbinding in China: Missionary and Medical
Stagings of the Universal Body90, and Mrs. Archibald Little as an Educator and Activist with Emphasis on Her Anti-Footbinding Activities91.
Other than the academic writings, Gerald Vizenor in Griever: An American Monkey King in China also mentioned Little’s work with the Unbinding Foot movement and how it affected the younger generations92.Dupée in British
travel writers in China used Little’s narratives to investigate the differences between British and Chinese dining customs and women’s positions in society93. Antonia Finnane used Little’s descriptions to map out the late Qing empire’s fashion and clothing. Aldrich took Little’s journals as his sources to analyze the boxer rebellions and show how it affected the expatriate
community at Bejing94.
Starting from 2002, both Taiwanese and Chinese publishing companies translated The Land in the Blue Gown (穿著藍袍的國度 2002), Round About My Peking Garden (我的北京花園, 或譯京華往事 2008), Intimate China(親密地 接觸中國 2008) and also republished all three books in English. In 2009 a Chinese novelist Lo, Shuai Pon (羅學蓬) created a fictional character based on
89
Patricia Ebrey, Gender and Sinology: Shifting Western Interpretations of Footbinding,
1300-1890. Late Imperial China Vol. 20, No. 2 (December 1999) 1–34
90 Angela Zito, ‘Secularizing the Pain of Footbinding in China: Missionary and Medical
Stagings of the Universal Body.’ in Journey of the American Academy of Religion, Volume
75, No.1, 2007. 1-24. 91
Gregory A Wagner, Mrs. Archibald Little as an Educator and Activist with Emphasis on Her
Anti-Footbinding Activities., National Taiwan University, 2002 92
Gerald Robert Vizenor, Griever, an American monkey king in China. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986,19-20 ;181-182
93
Jeffery N Dupée, British travel writers in China--writing home to a British public, 1890-1914, Lewiston, New York: E. Mellen Press, 2004, 217-220
94
M. A Aldrich, The Search for a Vanishing Beijing : A Guide to China’s Captial through the
Little’s work with the Unbinding Foot Movement. 95 The character was a
French young woman named Noris Mollen.96
95
The name of the charcter was translated to Chinese as莫兰·诺丽丝。 96
