As trade between the East and the West grew in the mid-nineteenth century, increasing numbers of Westerners travelled to China and Japan, and in 1867 this guide to the key port cities such as Hong Kong and Nagasaki was published in both Hong Kong and London. Its editor, Nicholas Belfield Dennys (?1813-99) claimed it was the first such comprehensive handbook printed for public distribution. Intended for visitors and new residents, the guide was originally typeset in China, allowing place names and other words to be printed in Chinese characters. The specially commissioned maps were also engraved in China. The book includes physical descriptions and brief histories of over twenty cities, details of schools and libraries, population statistics and much practical information, as well as a list of other publications on China and Japan. It is a valuable historical source on East Asia during a period of rapid change.

Macao, an archipelago attached to China, is a place whose name is redolent with myth, legend and history. Established by the Portuguese in 1557, Macao's role as the Portuguese trading base for East Asia, and also as the outpost for the Christian Church in the area, meant that since its very beginning it has been a region where disparate peoples and beliefs have met, mingled and learned to co-exist. Its position, conveniently located on China's doorstep, ensured that trade flourished; it became a rich warehouse, where more goods were exchanged than anywhere else in the world. It was also a place of debauchery and turpitude, with gambling dives, opium dens, secret pleasure houses and an astonishingly successful smuggling industry. <br>Administered by China since 1999, after two decades of intensive development Macao today has been transformed. From the end of World War ii until the 1980s, however, time seemed to stand still, and the city, preserved for a while from modernity, possessed a unique charm. In this Macao, East and West lived together in harmony: curved Chinese roofs, Corinthian columns and cast-iron balconies could be found side by side; statues of the Virgin were matched by little red shrines dedicated to local divinities; and beautiful Portuguese palaces were allowed to slip into elegant decay. It is this lost Macao, a dormant city of illusion, that Philippe Pons's evocative text recovers.