10 January 2018

Podcast: How British adventurer William Mesny became a general in Qing-dynasty China

2018-01-09T17:40:53+08:00January 10th, 2018|authors, media attention|0 Comments

If it's not one royal society, it's another. Have no fear, if you missed David Leffman's talk about William Mesny at the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong last year, you can listen in to the talk he gave to the Royal Asiatic Society in London in December. David has been visiting China as a travel writer for 25 years, [...]

15 September 2017

David Leffman talks about the Mercenary Mandarin: Sep 20

2017-09-15T00:10:04+08:00September 15th, 2017|events, hong kong|0 Comments

Come and hear author David Leffman talk about the “Mercenary Mandarin” at the Royal Geographical Society next week (Wednesday September 20th, 6.30pm, in Central, Hong Kong). In his talk, Leffman covers the extraordinary life of Victorian adventurer William Mesny, who spent most of his adult life in China, becoming a smuggler, a prisoner of the Taiping rebels, an arms dealer [...]

12 March 2016

“The Mercenary Mandarin” in Hong Kong

2016-11-24T01:13:59+08:00March 12th, 2016|authors, china, events, new books, publishing|0 Comments

Guidebook writer David Leffman is heading back to remote parts of Guizhou province on Tuesday, to pick up the trail of William Mesny - the British-born "Mercenary Mandarin" who became a general in the Chinese army. But before he goes, he will be giving an illustrated talk about Mesny to the Royal Asiatic Society in the Centre for Visual Arts, [...]