<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">8vo. pp. xxvii, 298. Frontispiece portrait. Bibliographic note on front free endpaper. Laid in was a copy of a letter from Foster to Dr A.J. Brown, dated 21 October 1916, saying that ‘I am now satisfied that the work is a fraud.’ This item is available in MS 580 in Special Collections at the Sheridan Libraries (Johns Hopkins University).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">First American edition of this work by the hoaxer, journalist, criminal, and literary forger William Francis Mannix (d. 1920), who claimed to have based his work on manuscripts written by the Chinese politician, diplomat and general Li Hung Chang (1823-1901). Mannix wrote the work while being imprisoned for fraud and had installments published in the New York Sun and the London Observer in 1912 before he turned it into the current form, which was first published in London (see Bib# 4103530/Fr# 1537 in this collection). At the request of the publisher, the American diplomat and journalist John Foster reviewed the work and even wrote an introduction for it, vouching for its authenticity. See M. K. Duhon, Journalist and Hoaxer: William Francis Mannix and the Long History of Faked News. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Master thesis, 2017.</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_907704" rel="ugc nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a></span></span></p>