‘Twas on the China Station

by Andrew Wareham 2 books in this series

The ‘Twas on the China Station series follows George Mayhew as he leaves naval life and builds a merchant house in Shanghai during the violent transformation of mid-nineteenth-century China. Beginning in 1850, the novels place commercial ambition beside the Taiping Rebellion, Qing political weakness and the expanding power of Britain, France and the United States in the treaty ports. Shipping, steam, property development and the opium trade provide the means by which Mayhew can create a fortune, but they also bind his success to unequal treaties and imperial coercion. The series combines a maritime and commercial saga with family inheritance, marriage and political calculation, using Shanghai’s rapid growth to examine how a modern international city was constructed from Chinese labour, foreign capital and the instability of a collapsing imperial order.

Reading order

Books in this series (2 books)

1. Building the City of Mammon

Andrew Wareham

First published 2025

4.4(1,405)

China, 1850. George Mayhew, the younger son of a Calcutta merchant family and a Royal Navy midshipman, finds that his enthusiasm for steam power has damaged his prospects in a service still governed by rank and tradition. He turns instead towards commerce and Shanghai, where British,…

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2. Intermission

Andrew Wareham

First published 2026

4.4(947)

By the mid-1850s, George Mayhew’s hong is established in a Shanghai that is expanding faster than its institutions can control. The Bund is taking shape, new streets and buildings are spreading across the foreign settlements, and Chinese refugees, labourers and merchants are drawn towards the relative…

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