Most people wrongly assume the Macartney Embassy of 1792-94 gave the Western world its first glimpse of the secretive Middle Kingdom. Why?
Such an erroneous statement is even made in a 2019 book published by HK independent book publisher Earnshaw Books titled Aeneas Anderson in China, edited by Frances Wood.
Anderson was in the Macartney delegation as Lord Macartney’s valet. 8 members of the embassy wrote memoirs of that trip. Anderson’s diary is touted as the most lively for his description of the Hoi Polloi’s life in China and Manchuria in the late 18th century.
