opium
‘Life was good, very good, almost too good’ – Wallis Simpson’s year in China
Arriving in Shanghai in the summer of 1924, the elegant 28-year-old embarked on a busy but harmless life of pleasure which would later be cast as a wild debauch
‘The Rothschilds of the East’
David Abulafia admires the shrewdness, generosity and panache of the Sassoons over many generations
Smoking opium with Mr Nazim – and a gecko
‘I used to go to India for a few months every year. A couple of times we even drove there.…
The wicked old Paris of the Orient
Here’s the Mandarin for ooh-la-la! As Taras Grescoe, a respected Canadian writer of nonfiction, shows in this marvellous, microscopically descriptive…
An incurable Romantic
Frances Wilson’s biography of Thomas De Quincey, the mischievous, elusive ‘Pope of Opium’, makes for addictive reading, says Hermione Eyre
‘What will they do when I am gone?’
Edward Thomas was gloomy as Eeyore. In 1906 he complained to a friend that his writing ‘was suffering more &…
Low life
Two years ago, roughly, for a travel piece, I flew to Delhi and took a southbound train to a dusty…
