One's Company: A Journey to China (London: Cape, 1934) is a travel book by Peter Fleming, correspondent for The Times of London , describing his journey day-by-day from London through Moscow and the Trans-Siberian Railway, then through Japanese-run Manchukuo, then on to Nanking, the capital of China in the 1930s, with a glimpse of “Red China”. It was reissued (with News from Tartary ) as half of Travels in Tartary.
Fleming's Preface opens with a self-deprecating observation:
The recorded history of Chinese civilization covers a period of four thousand years.
The population of China is estimated at 450 million.
China is larger than Europe.The author of this book is twenty-six years old.
He has spent, altogether, about seven months in China.
He does not speak Chinese.
British in its insouciant class condescension (Moscow was like a "servant’s quarters") and offhand anti-Semitism (the Soviet Union is run by Jews), the tone is imperially comic and the judgments quick, though always focused on the author. When Fleming gets to China, the reader is rewarded with acid portraits of Chiang Kai-shek, pronouncements on “Red China” and the prospects of Communism (it could never take hold in China), life on the war fronts, and the nature of the Japanese empire. [1] Nicholas J. Clifford observes: "If for Fleming... China remained something of a joke, the joke was less on the country than on the bemused traveler himself.... Even so, the humor ... can sometimes wear a little thin.... there was much about it that still had the aspect of a comic opera land whose quirks and oddities became grist for the writer rather than deserving any respect or sympathy in themselves." [2] Paul French unsympathetically described it as "largely a litany of visits to places he didn't like — except England." [3]
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and written narrative, usually, dialogue contained in word balloons emblematic of the comics art form.
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.
Strait of Tartary or Gulf of Tartary is a strait in the Pacific Ocean dividing the Russian island of Sakhalin from mainland Asia, connecting the Sea of Okhotsk on the north with the Sea of Japan on the south. It is 632 kilometres (393 mi) long, 7–342 kilometres (4.3–212.5 mi) wide, and less than 210 m (690 ft) deep at its deepest point.
Inter-city rail services are express passenger train services that run services that connect cities over longer distances than commuter or regional trains. They include rail services that are neither short-distance commuter rail trains within one city area nor slow regional rail trains stopping at all stations and covering local journeys only. An inter-city train is typically an express train with limited stops and comfortable carriages to serve long-distance travel.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Peter Fleming was a British adventurer, journalist, soldier and travel writer. He was the elder brother of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond.
Paul Edward Theroux is an American novelist and travel writer who has written numerous books, including the travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar (1975). Some of his works of fiction have been adapted as feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast, which was adapted for the 1986 movie of the same name and the 2021 television series of the same name.
Ella Maillart was a Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as a sportswoman.
A camel train, caravan or camel string is a series of camels carrying passengers and goods on a regular or semi-regular service between points. Despite rarely travelling faster than human walking speed, for centuries camels' ability to withstand harsh conditions made them ideal for communication and trade in the desert areas of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Camel trains were also used sparingly elsewhere around the globe. Since the early 20th century they have been largely replaced by motorized vehicles or air traffic.
Évariste Régis Huc, C.M., also known as the Abbé Huc (1813–1860), was a French Catholic priest, Lazarite missionary, and traveller. He became famous for his accounts of Qing-era China, Mongolia, and especially the then-almost-unknown Tibet in his book Remembrances of a Journey in Tartary, Tibet, and China. He and his companion Joseph Gabet were the first Europeans who had reached Lhasa since Thomas Manning in 1812.
Shangri-La is a fictional place in Asia's Kunlun Mountains (昆仑山), described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by English author James Hilton. Hilton portrays Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia – an enduringly happy land, isolated from the world. In the novel, the people who live in Shangri-La are almost immortal, living hundreds of years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance.
Colonel Sun is a novel by Kingsley Amis published by Jonathan Cape on 28 March 1968 under the pseudonym "Robert Markham". Colonel Sun is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Fleming's 1964 death. Before writing the novel, Amis wrote two other Bond related works, the literary study The James Bond Dossier and the humorous The Book of Bond. Colonel Sun centres on the fictional British Secret Service operative James Bond and his mission to track down the kidnappers of M, his superior at the Secret Service. During the mission he discovers a communist Chinese plot to cause an international incident. Bond, assisted by a Greek spy working for the Russians, finds M on a small Aegean island, rescues him and kills the two main plotters: Colonel Sun Liang-tan and a former Nazi commander, Von Richter.
William Moorcroft was an English veterinarian and explorer employed by the East India Company. Moorcroft travelled extensively throughout the Himalayas, Tibet and Central Asia, eventually reaching Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan.
Casino Royale is the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming. Published in 1953, it is the first James Bond book, and it paved the way for a further eleven novels and two short story collections by Fleming, followed by numerous continuation Bond novels by other authors.
Brazilian Adventure is a book by Peter Fleming about his search for the lost Colonel Percy Fawcett in the Brazilian jungle. The book was initially published in 1933 by Alden Press.
News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir is a 1936 travel book by Peter Fleming, describing his journey and the political situation of Turkestan.
Diamonds Are Forever is the fourth novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the story at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, inspired by a Sunday Times article on diamond smuggling. The book was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 26 March 1956.
Journey Among Warriors is a book of war reportage by the French-American journalist and writer Ève Curie, first published in 1943, in which the author described her experiences during her trip to Africa, the Near East, Soviet Union, China, Burma and India, where she traveled from November 1941 to April 1942.
Major Gerald Joseph Yorke was an English soldier and writer. He was a Reuters correspondent while in China for two years in the 1930s, and wrote a book China Changes (1936).
It's on the Meter – World Taxi Challenge was a round-the-world motoring expedition that broke the Guinness World Records for the longest ever journey by taxi and the highest altitude ever reached by taxi. The expedition's three-man team used a 1992 Fairway Driver London Black Cab to drive 43,319.5 miles (69,716.12 km) around the world.