David Leffman

About The Author

David Leffman is a travel writer and photographer who first visited China in 1985. Since then he has clocked up over six years in the country, researching guidebooks for Rough Guides and DK and writing newspaper articles on Chinese history and culture. He has also authored The Mercenary Mandarin, a biography of the 19th-century British adventurer in China, William Mesny; and Paper Horses, about traditional woodblock prints of Chinese folk gods.

Books by David Leffman

The Mercenary Mandarin

How a British adventurer became a general in Qing-dynasty China

By David Leffman
William Mesny ran off to sea as a boy and jumped ship at Shanghai in 1860 when he was just 18. Amid the chaos of foreign intrigue and civil war in 19th-century China, he became a smuggler, a prisoner of the Taiping rebels, a gun-runner and finally enlisted in the Chinese military.

After f...
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