I hope that, in spite of many questions still unanswered, this brief study with nevertheless fulfil its purpose: that it will answer questions that have long been discussed about Backhouse's work, and provide a truer history than has hitherto been available about the mystery man whom a Chinese scholar has described to me as “though a recluse, certainly the most interesting and colourful of the Europeans of his time in China”.
The year was 1973 and Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper – eventual Baron Dacre of Glanton, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, author of countless influential treatises on the philosophy of historical research, and former MI5 agent – was contacted out of the blue by a Swiss scientist who wished for him to inspect, and if he deemed them appropriate, to pass on to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, two volumes of memoir by the long dead and nearly forgotten sinologist, Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet. Further, this Swiss scientist wished to hand over the memoir in person as the contents were too inconvenient to send through the post. As Trevor-Roper received and then examined said memoir, he immediately understood the Swiss concern: In graphic and obscene detail, Backhouse filled his two volumes with a veritable Who's Who of famous people he allegedly slept with at the turn of the twentieth century – literary stars, well known politicians, several Empresses, and Imperial Eunuchs. In trying to confirm the details of what appeared surely fantastical, Trevor-Roper was led deeper and deeper into the warren of filled-in rabbitholes that were all that remained of Backhouse's outsized and incredible life. What Trevor-Roper learned of Backhouse and assembled into his biography, Hermit of Peking, makes for a fascinating story of one man's life, but even moreso, it gives much to consider about the details from history that we accept as “true”: history is not just written by the victors, but sometimes too, by conmen. Part history, part scavenger hunt, written in a wry but Oxfordly donnish tone, I found this book to be equal parts enlightening and entertaining.
There's far too much detail to go over all of Backhouse's life here, but the most important fact seems to be that he was a gifted linguist who ended up in Peking in the late 1890's and was eventually the coauthor, with J. O. P. Bland, of two very influential books on the end of the Manchu Dynasty (China Under the Empress Dowager and Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking). The first of these works was primarily based on a diary that Backhouse had found in the study of a Court official (Ching-shan, who had had to flee his home during the Boxer Rebellion), and Backhouse would eventually donate this rare and valuable document (along with tens of thousands of other Chinese manuscripts) to the Bodleian Library at Oxford (where he attended, but never earned a degree, and where his name is still inscribed on a tablet today as a major benefactor). There was controversy over the years as to the authenticity of this diary, but so far as Trevor-Roper could ascertain, no one ever suspected or accused Backhouse himself of forgery or fraud relating to it. And yet...
So ended the story of Backhouse's career as an entrepreneur. It had been a glorious career – or rather a glorious pipe-dream – while it lasted. Fleets of battleships, millions of bank-notes, arms for warring nations, imperial jewels, had been the substance of it. Cabinet ministers, industrial magnates, high financiers, envoys extraordinary of four nations had been involved. But now all was over.Through Trevor-Roper's dogged research, he was able to discover many instances of forgery and fraud committed by Backhouse throughout the non-literary areas of his career. It would seem that most people, companies, and even governments, who suffered from dealings with Backhouse over the years attempted to bury and forget their interactions with him – Trevor-Roper several times refers to them collectively as a “nest of gulls” – but from a line in this man's diary or a veiled reference in some other's telegram, the historian found himself led to bigger and wider intrigues than he could have imagined. Even after Hermit of Peking was set to go to press, Trevor-Roper was directed to a single reference to Backhouse in the archives of the Foreign Office which led to the entire project being recalled so he could add a new chapter – on Backhouse's efforts as an arms-dealing secret agent for Britain during WWI – that caused the historian to rethink everything he thought he knew about Backhouse. What can we really know about any historic figure outside of eyewitness accounts? And what if we can't trust the eyewitness accounts?
In this dream-world of Backhouse's autobiography, two recurrent features deserve attention. One is the uncertainty of the boundary between fact and fiction. The iridescent centre of the web is too obviously a work of art, deliberately spun. But where exactly does the web of fantasy meet the solid thorns of fact? Through the mysterious Backhousian twilight it is difficult to distinguish the gossamer from the twig. Sometimes a shaft of external light enables us to do so at one particular point; but without such external aid we can never be sure. We know that fiction, at some point, is joined to reality; but the point of contact escapes the naked eye.Ultimately, Trevor-Roper demonstrates conclusively that we can't trust anything from Backhouse: his business and interpersonal dealings were shady, his memoirs are a fantasy, and as Ching-shan's diary was eventually proven to be a forgery, we can presume that it was Backhouse who wrote it. Which brings up all kinds of interesting philosophical questions about the reliability of primary sources (Backhouse was not remembered to history as a fraudster until the memoirs he wrote, which were penned in part to support the material in Ching-shan's diary, were brought to light in a more liberal age; he might still be quoted as a reliable source had not Trevor-Roper begun this investigation). I also found it very interesting/ironic to learn from Trevor-Roper's Wikipedia page that: 1) He believed that preliterate societies (and in particular, African societies prior to European exploration) had no history at all because it wasn't written down, and 2) The nadir of his career was when he inaccurately authenticated the so-called Hitler Diaries. So, you can't trust history if it isn't written down, and as Trevor-Roper definitely learned, you can't trust everything that is written down. Fascinating stuff; so much more than there's room to share.
