Book excerpt: Originally published in 1976, this is the first of two volumes of the selected letters of George Ernest Morrison, The Times correspondent in China in the late Imperial and early Republican period. Few people were in a better position to observe and comment on the events of those years. The first volume of correspondence ends with the revolution and the collapse of the Manchu dynasty in 1912. The second volume covers Morrison's career as political advisor to the first President of the Republic of China until his death in 1920.