Fragrance’ might stem from the fact that the harbour waters are sweetened by fresh water from the Pearl River; alternatively, it may refer to the sweet smell of incense being sold from the shore but carried by the wind across the harbour waters. I have read several of his books and they are all so completely different in style,tone, and subject.

The Belle Adventure itself, fishing for cod, crossed the Atlantic bound for the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, and several of Wallis’s later pictures record this voyage (e. The village is known for its textile heritage, and Tschudi would briefly experiment with designs for textiles when she put certain of her images onto pillow and cushion cases. Spowers trained at the Melbourne National Gallery Art School (1911-17) and gained a reputation for black and white children’s story illustrations. Lanchester's main character, Tom Stewart, is a Kentish lad who journeys to the exotic Far East in 1935, just as the commercial prospects of Hong Kong are becoming apparent. The novel ends three years after the Mainland Chinese takeover, with Hong Kong as greedy, corrupt, and corrupting as when Stewart first landed there.The postwar story is of Hong Kong's enormous growth, the means by which businessmen converted millions into billions, and the activities of the Triads, the local mafia, among whom a young protégé of Stewart and the nun grows very prominent. The apparently important bit- part of a poet named Wilfred Austen, who is quite like his near-namesake Wystan Auden, does seem a bit gratuitous, but the author enjoyed it and pays his debt to pleasure.

This is direct, instructional, simple and whimsical, and he adopts this gentle tone from the first, right through to the eighteenth ‘This Is’ title.His books have been translated into numerous languages and his illustrations have met with critical acclaim, with both ‘This Is London’ and ‘This Is New York’ named ‘Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year’ by the New York Times in 1959 and 1960 respectively. I did think of you when I started reading this, Kevin, primarily because the first character was a journalist. Thank goodness, then, for fine upstanding citizen Tom, whose story takes up the greater chunk of this novel. The title is a translation of "Hong Kong", and most of the story takes place in that territory, while it was still a colony. But whilst firmly within this tradition, these artists were also modernisers, especially in the adoption of new subject matter.