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Historical person
1799–1853
Lancelot Dent was a British merchant in Canton and a leading partner in Dent & Company, one of the largest firms involved in the China trade. Lancelot Dent is generally dated to 1799–1853.
His business profited heavily from opium imported from India, and Qing commissioner Lin Zexu attempted to force his surrender during the 1839 crisis. Dent avoided personal detention, while the wider confrontation led merchants to hand over opium under British protection and helped precipitate war.
Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke makes Lancelot Dent one of the real British merchants operating in Canton on the eve of the First Opium War. As a leading figure in the foreign Chamber of Commerce, Dent argues for the privileges of the opium traders and for a version of free trade backed by British power, helping the novel show how commercial self-interest and resistance to Qing law hardened into demands for imperial intervention.
Series
The Ibis Trilogy, written by acclaimed Indian author Amitav Ghosh, is an epic historical fiction series comprising Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011), and Flood of Fire (2015). Set in the 1830s, the sweeping narrative centers on the Ibis—a repurposed slave ship—and traces the devastating geopolitical…
All books in this series
