Heading: (China)
Author: Geil, William E.
Title: Manuscript Diary of William Edgar Geil, Missionary and Explorer Documenting his Trip Through China in 1910
Place Published:
Publisher:
Date Published: 1910
Description:

54 pp. Ink manuscript journal entries covering Kweiyang, Tsungi, Luchow, Chengdu, et al. January - March 1910. 5x6¼", cloth.

Inscription on front endpaper reads "Wm. Edgar Geil (Sat.) New Year's day 1910 Anshun, Kweichow, China." This short but important diary follows Geil's progress on a return trip through China. Accompanied by a copy of Philip Whitwell Wilson's An Explorer of Changing Horizons: William Edgar Geil.

Geil's hurried handwriting and clipped sentences display a man with an active mind writing on the fly. For example, he jots notes such as "What [is] so startling is to see 4 bearer chair bear seven on a narrow crowded street - hold my breath - many will be named & others killed. The common est. coolie becomes a lord when on a chair." In another instance he records that "Chinese are a nation of cooks. Every Chinaman knows something about cooking & when war comes it will serve him well." On the matter of clothing Geil expounds at length, "The clothes of the Chinese are made to sit in. The garment of the west to walk in, to run in. The Chinese raiment suggests contemplation, meditation, inaction. Our suits suggest ambition, aspiration, action. This some say is the difference 'tween the East & the West. But the East can easily change its clothes, indeed is now engaged changing its clothes. Fashions are modifying in the East. The scarcity of fuel is responsible for certain oddities of outfit.... Here is the reverse of the West. Here the men wear the petticoats & the women wear the closely fitting trousers often of the most brilliant colors."

In the first decade of the twentieth century William Edgar Geil (1865-1925), a Baptist missionary turned explorer, gained international celebrity for his travels through Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He wrote bestselling titles documenting his journeys through exotic lands and produced an important photographic record capturing images of vanishing cultures. He gave lectures around the world captivating his audiences both through his oratorical skills, which he honed over the years, as well as with the photographs he produced. His 1908 journey through China gained him fame as one of the first individuals to traverse the entire length of the Great Wall. Indeed, Geil became so popular through his books and lectures that comparisons with the likes of Stanley and Livingstone were not uncommon.However, after Geil's 1925 death in Venice, his popularity quickly faded and his wrks were nearly forgotten by historians. The answer to this enigma may be explained by his wife, Lucy. After his death, she stored away all his notes, letters, diaries, books, and photographs until 1959 when the lot was sold at an estate sale to Walter Gustafson. In turn, Gustafson stores over twenty boxes of these papers in his barn for another fifty years. For eighty years, a record of Geil's travels were confined to his early published books and a biography of him published in 1927. However, in 2008, with the unearthing of this cache of papers, a number of articles, books, and a recent documentary has been made acknowledging the importance of his work regarding historical record and understanding the cultures he studied.

Discoloration to top edge of front cover and ink marks to rear cover; front hinge weak; very good.