"An all-out revisionist assault on the established perception of:Tzu Hsi... Seagrave provides as sad and outrageous a record of imperialism as can be found anywhere in the world."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Mr.Seagrave has disinterred one of Chinese history’s more shadowy figures and proven that truth is far more interesting than the bizarre myths that were attached to her. I have read [this book] with interest and admiration." -- Paul Theroux

The Last Empress has been remembered as one of history’s most monstrous women--a ruthless Manchu concubine who seduced and murdered her way to the throne in 1861 to rule China through perversion, corruption, and intrigue for half a century. Yet Sterling Seagrave’s magnificent biography of the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi is both a timely reassessment of the myth and an unsparing account of the imperialism from which it arose.

Drawing on a vast array of sources, penetrating the secrecy of the Forbidden City and the sanctimony of Tzu Hsi’s Victorian biographers (the most respected of whom turns out to have been a confidence man and amateur pornographer), Dragon Lady gives the most vivid and accurate portrait to date of the much-maligned last empress. It is also a riveting chronicle of China’s terminal encounter with the West and an astute look at the conquerors’ need to create a monster where they could not find one.

    Cast of Characters

    Author’s Note

PROLOGUE  Flowers in the Back Garden

ONE    Lady Yebenara

Two    Foreign Devils

THREE   The Palace Coup

FOUR    Behind a Gauze Curtain

FIVE    Two Men on a Horse

six    Life in a Yellow Mist

SEVEN   Suicide of a Phoenix

EIGHT   "Our Hart"

NINE    A Hostage to Etiquette

TEN    The New lronbats

ELEVEN   The Wild Fox

TWELVE   Tbe Puppet Show

THIRTEEN  The Betrayal

FOURTEEN  The Fugitive

FIFTEEN  Poisoned Pen

SIXTEEN  The Sly Pornographer

SEVENTEEN Weed People

EIGHTEEN  Something Wicked This Way Comes

NINETEEN  A Mad, Rotten Scheme

TWENTY   The Siege of Peking

TWENTY-ONE  Chinese Takeaway

TWENTY-TWO   Forked Tongue

TWENTY-THREE  The Dragons Flee

TWENTY-FOUR  "That Odious Woman"

TWENTY-FIVE  Hunting Snipe

TWENTY-SIX   Hatcbing the Dragon Lady

EPILOGUE    Dynasty’s End

      Notes

      Bibliograpby

      Acknowledgments

      Index