Imperial Masquerade

The Legend of Princess Der Ling

Grant Hayter-Menzies
Foreword by Pamela Kyle Crossley

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• Published: 2008
• Subject Listing: Asian Studies, Biography
• Bibliographic information: 350 pp., 6 x 9 in.
• Territorial rights: North American rights only
• Distributed for: Hong Kong University Press
• Contents

Daughter of a Manchu aristocrat, granddaughter of a Boston merchant, educated like a boy in the Confucian classics, a baptized Catholic blessed by the hand of Pope Leo XIII, a woman who donned chic Western fashions in China and her ceremonial court robes in the United States, and wife of an American soldier of fortune, Princess Der Ling was a fascinating human battleground of warring identities. Imperial Masquerade is the first biography of one of the twentieth century's most intriguing cross-cultural personalities, traces not only the life of Princess Der Ling but offers a fresh look at the woman she lionized and, ultimately, betrayed - the Empress Dowager Cixi.

The book also depicts the changing worlds of Paris, Tokyo and the other international stages of Der Ling's development as woman and as mystery, and deals with the many teachers who made her who she was: Isadora Duncan, Sarah Bernhardt, the Empress of Japan, her own broad-minded father, American society figures like Barbara Hutton, and most of all, the Empress Dowager Cixi, who knew all about being several different people at once.

"This is a fine book, full of historical surprises. Grant Hayter-Menzies has taken a strange and much-abused figure and brought her back to life with grace and flair. He shows that 'Princess' Der Ling really was a lady-in-waiting to China's Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi, and really was a member of the Manchu nobility. Outside China, the real Der Ling led a fabulous life as a diplomat's daughter in Paris, in the company of world-famous celebrities, and then ended in tragedy in America, as sympathetically reconstructed in this charming book." - Sterling Seagrave, author of Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China

A resident of Sidney, British Columbia, Grant Hayter-Menzies has served as art and music critic for newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Canada.

Hear Grant Hayter-Menzies discuss Princess Der Ling and Imperial Masquerade on China Radio International, http://english.cri.cn/4026/2008/04/10/191@344050.htm

List of Illustrations
Foreword by Pamela Kyle Crossley
Preface
Acknowledgements

Part I
1. "The marriage, I believe, was a love affair..."
2. Culture clash
3. "A noisy family of English-speaking children..."
4. Beijing to Tokyo
5. Samurai in pinstripes
6. Chrysanthemums and politics
7. Back to China, forward to France
8. La ville lumière
9. Chinese powder keg
10. Dancing with Isadora
11. "The golden goddess of tragedy"
12. Scandal

Part II
13. Empress Dowager Cixi
14. Garden of Nurtured Harmony
15. Lady of the court
16. Eunuchs and jewels
17. "A very precious child"
18. Rumblings in paradise
19. The Forbidden City
20. Cat's eyes and big feet
21. A portrait for the Empress
22. Hungry ghosts
23. Imperial birthday
24. War clouds
25. "First-class female official"

Part III
26. East is West, West is East
27. Flapper "princess"
28. "To others she may have been cruel..."
29. On the defense
30. Scheherazade of the Hotel Wagons-Lits
31. "... she means to educate Americans..."
32. Squeeze money
33. China reborn
34. Princess of patriots

Legacy
Notes
Family Tree
Bibliography
Index