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Traveller and journalist Andrew Wilson used General Charles Gordon's journals to write this account of the suppression of the Taiping uprising in Qing-dynasty China in 1863-1864. First published in 1868, the book sheds light on the early career of one of Britain's greatest Victorian military heroes.

First published in French in 1797 and in this English translation in 1798, van Braam Houckgeest's 'faithful description' of a recent Dutch embassy to Beijing was received with enthusiasm by British readers. Volume 2 includes one of the last Western descriptions of the spectacular Summer Palace, destroyed in 1860.

This guide to China and Japan, edited by Nicholas Belfield Dennys (?1813-99) was one of the first directories of its type to be publicly available. Typeset and engraved in China, it was published in Hong Kong and London in 1867, and provides comprehensive information on the key treaty ports.

George Leonard Staunton (1737-1801) was part of Lord Macartney's delegation to China in 1792, intended to improve relations with Britain. The talks failed, but Staunton kept a detailed account of his time there, which was published in two volumes in 1797. Volume 1 describes the nine-month voyage to China.

In 1857 Laurence Oliphant (1829-88), lawyer, journalist, diplomat and sometime spy, became private secretary to Lord Elgin, accompanying him on a diplomatic mission to Japan and China, aimed at extended British trading interests. His 1859 account provides a highly informative analysis of the negotiations from a privileged vantage point.

Invited to advise on Japan's naval expansion, Sir Edward Reed (1830-1906) spent three months in the country. Published in 1880, this book gives an insight into Japan during a key period in her history and is an informal yet informed assessment of her people, customs, history and geography.

This 1866 two-volume history of the Taiping Rebellion in China (1850-64) is both a defence of the rebels and a savage indictment of Britain's imperial policy and apathetic attitude to its consequences. It is an important and passionate account by a British soldier and participant.

A valuable insight into British attitudes to Chinese trade in the years between the end of the East India Company's monopoly and the First Opium War, this 1836 pamphlet describes Chinese society and government, and the reasons behind Britain's inability to tap into this vast and potentially lucrative market.

Naval officer Granville Gower Loch (1813-53) adapted his journal for this 1843 publication. Containing observations on the landscape, people, customs and commerce of eastern China, as well as military and diplomatic events, it is an engaging account of the close of the First Opium War and remains valuable to scholars of Chinese history.

In 1860, naval officer Sherard Osborn (1822-75), a veteran of both Opium Wars, published this collection of remarks and predictions on Chinese affairs in relation to British imperial interests. Osborn seeks to explain the Chinese frame of mind to his readership, perceived as lacking sound information on the topic.

A brilliant linguist, Sir Ernest Satow (1843-1929) was recruited as a student interpreter into the consular service in 1861. He was sent to Japan, where he witnessed the Tokugawa Shogunate's overthrow and the Meiji Restoration. This 1921 account is based on the diaries Satow kept whilst in Japan.

The first edition of this work, which outlines China's treaty engagements with various foreign powers, was published by Sir Edward Hertslet (1824-1902) in 1896. The two-volume third edition reissued here was published by his son Godfrey in 1908, and took account of new treaties in the intervening twelve years.

The first edition of this work, which outlines China's treaty engagements with various foreign powers, was published by Sir Edward Hertslet (1824-1902) in 1896. The two-volume third edition reissued here was published by his son Godfrey in 1908, and took account of new treaties in the intervening twelve years.

When he published this work in 1847, Thomas Taylor Meadows (1815-68) was the British consular interpreter at the key treaty port of Canton (Guangzhou). Including discussion of difficulties in learning Chinese, the work sheds valuable light on the bureaucracy, corruption and tension in southern China prior to the Taiping Rebellion.

A classic study of the subject and one of the major works in English on Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, Furnivall's magisterial history was published on the brink of the Second World War when Dutch power was waning in the archipelago. This study traces the economic and social development of Netherlands India from the arrival of the Dutch to 1939. It illustrates the geographical, economic and social features of the colony, and how Dutch and native Indonesian inhabitants co-existed within a unique, now lost, society and culture. Furnivall (1878-1960) served as a British colonial administrator in Burma for many years, and went on to become Professor of Burmese Studies at Cambridge University. The breadth and scope of this book make it an often cited and influential book in southeast Asian studies to this day.

Sir George Thomas Staunton (1781-1859), sinologist and politician, was a key figure in early nineteenth-century Anglo-Chinese relations. Staunton secured a post as a writer in the East India Company's factory in Canton in 1798 and was the only Englishman at the factory to study Chinese. He translated China's penal code and was promoted to chief of the Canton factory in 1816. He was a member of Britain's Amherst embassy to Peking in 1816-1817 to protest against mandarins' treatment of Canton merchants. The embassy failed to obtain an imperial interview but, despite being threatened with detention by the Chinese, Staunton insisted that the British should not submit to the emperor. Staunton returned to England in 1817, and served as a Tory MP between 1818 and 1852. Staunton's Memoirs, which were printed privately in 1856, provide a unique insight into nineteenth-century British perceptions of China.