Chinese dreams in Romantic England: The life and times of Thomas Manning - Hardcover

by Edward Weech (Author)

A polymath and participant in the 'first wave' of British Romanticism, Manning was one of the first Englishmen to study Chinese language and culture. His extraordinary story, told for the first time, transforms our understanding of Romanticism and the cultural exchange between Britain and Asia.

Back Jacket

'A thrilling account of Wordsworth and Coleridge's contemporary Thomas Manning, a remarkable radical ... He well deserves to be celebrated.' Claire Tomalin, author of The Young H.G. Wells: Changing the World

'Thomas Manning did many remarkable things and knew many remarkable people. He deserves a biography. Such a book will hold particular interest for those who care about the British Romantics, British culture in the early nineteenth century, or British "orientalism".' Michael Ferber, author of Romanticism: A very short introduction

'Edward Weech's eloquent, illuminating study of Thomas Manning is a landmark event in Romantic studies and the history of ideas. With rigor and aplomb, the book resurrects a stunningly polymathic contemporary of Coleridge and Lamb, a man who thrived as a linguist, explorer, mathematician, and wit.' Eric G. Wilson, author of Dream-Child: A life of Charles Lamb

A brilliant polymath and part of the 'first wave' of British Romanticism, Thomas Manning was one of the first Englishmen to study Chinese language and culture. Like famous friends including Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb, Manning was inspired by the French Revolution and had ambitious plans for making a better world.

While his contemporaries turned to the poetic imagination and the English countryside, Manning looked further afield - to China, one of the world's most ancient and sophisticated civilizations. His travels included the salons of Napoleonic Paris, a period as a prisoner of war, a dramatic shipwreck, and, disguised as a Buddhist pilgrim, a trek through the Himalayas to Tibet, where he met the Dalai Lama. After his death, his outward-looking vision was eclipsed by the English-rural poetic vision of Romanticism, and he was forgotten.

Manning's extraordinary story, here told in full for the first time using recently discovered archival sources, sheds a new light on English Romanticism and the course of cultural exchange between Britain and Asia at the dawn of the nineteenth century.

Author Biography

Edward Weech is Librarian at the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.