Ma Jianzhong was a close adviser to the powerful Qing government official, Li Hong-zhang, and wrote several essays between 1878 and 1890 outlining his plans for economic and administrative reform. He was the first Chinese to advocate the creation of a specialized and professional diplomatic corps. His contribution to the late nineteenth-century Chinese discourse on the state and the economy has hitherto been neglected. Paul Bailey's translation of his essays will contribute to a wider understanding of the origins and circulation of reform ideas in the late Qing.

Harry Chapman is gravely ill in hospital. Why can he hear his mother's voice, acerbic and disappointed in him as usual? Is it because of Dr Pereira's wonder drug? Perhaps her presence would be understandable enough, but what is Pip from 'Great Expectations' doing here? Soon, more and more voices add to the chorus.

In May 1927, nineteen-year-old Dinu Grigorescu, a skinny boy with literary ambitions, is newly arrived in Paris. He has been sent from Bucharest, the city of his childhood, by his wealthy father to embark upon a bohemian adventure and relish the unique pleasures of Parisian life. An innocent in a new city, still grieving the sudden loss of his beloved mother Elena seven years earlier, Dinu is encouraged to enjoy la vie de Boh me by his distant cousin, Eduard. But tentatively, secretly, Dinu is drawn to the Bains du Ballon d'Alsace, a notorious establishment rumoured to offer the men of Paris,...