Digital collection which includes English-language sources relating to China and the West, primarily from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library and supplemented by additional sources from Cambridge University Library, the Church Missionary Society Archive, the Council for World Missions Library, Duke University, the National Archives at Kew, the Alexander Turnbull Library at the National Library of New Zealand and Yale Divinity Library.
Included in the collection are manuscripts encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic; documents relating to the Chinese Maritime Customs service; letters relating to the first Opium War, survivors’ descriptions of the Boxer War, and glimpses of life in China from the collected diaries and personal photographs of the Bowra family; significant sources describing the lives and work of missionaries in China from 1869-1970, including extensive and fully searchable runs of The Chinese Recorder, Light and Life Magazine, and The Land of Sinim: the North China Mission Quarterly Paper. It also offers over 400 color paintings, maps, and drawings by English and Chinese artists, as well as many photographs, sketches, and ephemeral items depicting Chinese people, places, customs, and events.
Coverage: 1793-1980