Jonathan Mirsky
Being A Ruler Is Difficult
China: The Three Emperors, 1662–1795
By Evelyn S Rawski and Jessica Rawson (ed)
Royal Academy of Arts 494pp £25.95 order from our bookshop
Can there have been another emperor during the last 2,500 years of Chinese history who had himself painted ladling human manure onto a rice paddy? Yongzheng (1678–1735) did. Most royal portraits, like those in the Royal Academy's exhibition 'The Three Emperors’, were intended to awe. In more informal pictures the emperors pursued tigers, galloped horses through the mountains, and received grovelling subjects. Only Yongzheng ladled shit.
One of the most eccentric emperors in Chinese history (he reigned from 1722 to 1735), Yongzheng was sandwiched between two of the greatest: his famous father, Kangxi (reigned 1662–1722 ), and his yet more famous son, Qianlong (reigned 1736–95). He is described, in Regina Krahl's short but informative essay in
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Walk down your supermarket pet food aisle and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single brand that claims to be made with high-welfare meat. More expensive pet food should not be about spoiling our cats but about sparing the farmed beasts we feed them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/meattoo
'Two things prevent [this book] from collapsing under the weight of its own wayward ambition. Colin Jones, one of the finest living scholars of early modern France, is no ordinary historian. And the day in question, 27 July 1794, was no ordinary day'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/night-of-the-guillotine
The Anatomy of Melancholy 'has never quite become a widely recognised, bona fide "classic". For long stretches, the bulk of its readership has been restricted to bibliophiles and scholars. It has had an air of murkiness and desuetude'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/phantoms-of-the-mind