To Peking: A Forgotten Journey from Moscow to Manchuria [Paperback]

Peter Fleming (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2009

When in 1934 at the age of twenty-seven, Peter Fleming set out for the Far East, his ultimate goal was to return from China to India overland - a journey he later described in the classic News from Tartary. On his outward journey Fleming travelled through regions which remain some of the most remote and least-visited in Asia and which, soon after his journey, became closed entirely to westerners. From Moscow, through the Caucasus to the Caspian, on to Samarkand and Tashkent, skirting the edge of Outer Mongolia to Vladivostok and winding his way down to Peking, Fleming tells of people encountered, places explored and of ways of life that have since been lost through revolution, war and the passage of time. Along the way he kept a diary that he never intended to publish and that lay forgotten "In the box-room" of his mind for fifteen years. To Peking is an unassuming classic of travel literature. Subtle yet sparkling with intelligence and humour, simple yet beautifully told, it illuminates a world that travellers - armchair or otherwise - can only dream of today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Peter Fleming’s To Peking tells the story of a long journey, with much that is relevant for us to-day, From the Caucasus to Shanghai, via Tashkent, Irkutz and Valdivostok, Fleming sharpens his keen eye and caustic wit on bewitching places and a medley of colourful characters he encounters along the way. Written with the immediacy of a diary, this is not a journey the reader will easily forget." --John Hare, author of Mysteries of the Gobi

Further Praise for Peter Fleming:

One's Company

“With an acid and scornful mind, a fresh and vivid style… One reads him for literary delight and for the pleasure of meeting an Elizabethan spirit allied to a modern mind…. but he is also an observer of penetrating intellect.” --Vita Sackville-West

 “Original and impressive… As a journalist he is modernity itself; as a traveller he has about him an Elizabethan aroma, being both cruel and amused.” --Harold Nicholson

“A classic traveller.” --Compton Mackenzie, Daily Mail

News from Tartary

“… A simple blending of modesty and wit in disarming proportions… the result is something fresh and delightful in the literature of high Asia.” --New York Times

“I read the book for the pleasure of Mr. Fleming’s company. Like thousands of other people I am charmed by high impudent street-urchin approach to danger and discomfort, to hunger and thirst.” -- David Garnett, New Statesman

“Its entertainment value is immense. It will arouse great fury and cause much pleasure.” --Harold Nicholson

“It confirmed Fleming’s place in the front rank of travel writers… no modern work of travel has given me more pleasure… I have read it more times than I can remember.” --Nigel Buxton

“Mr. Fleming will be remembered as a gifted writer with and easy pen given to satire… This kind of journey and this kind of book are at his fingertips.” --V. S. Pritchard

“… One of the most impressive volumes that have come from Asia in many years… unadulterated reporting… brilliantly written and candidly truthful.” --G. E. Sokolsky

Brazilian Adventure

"The best travel book I have read for a long time. It is crammed with sound observation, good writing, humour and a unique blend of disillusion, foolhardiness and high spirits.’ --J.B. Priestley

"This account of the expedition has that essential double interest which is characteristic of all really great books of adventure. Mr Fleming has the most delightful sense of humour and he writes brilliantly."  --David Garnett

"An extraordinarily good book." --Sunday Times

The Siege at Peking

“An exceptionally readable book.” --Sunday Times

“…An astonishing tale… exciting, enthralling, at times humorous and always strictly accurate, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book.” --Time and Tide

 

About the Author

Peter Fleming (1907-1971) was a journalist and writer and one of the last great adventurers of the 20th century. He began his career as a special correspondent for The Times and later wrote for The Spectator throughout. He served with the Grenadier Guards during World War II and from 1942 was in charge of military deception operations in Southeast Asia, for which he was awarded an OBE. He is author of several classic books, which include Brazilian Adventure, One's Company, News from Tartary and Bayonets to Lhasa. In his memory, The Royal Geographical Society established The Peter Fleming Award for projects that seek to advance geographical science.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks (October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845119967
• ISBN-13: 978-1845119966
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,303,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars short notes on a long journey, June 28, 2010

By 

Reader "kkbs" (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Peking: A Forgotten Journey from Moscow to Manchuria (Paperback)

Unfortunately, this book is not comparable with Fleming's other travellogues, but a kind of diary written partly in short note form. Fleming wrote his diary in 1934, when he travelled from Moscow through the Caucasus, along the Turksib and the Transib, and finally through Japanese occupied Manchuria to Beijing. In particular, the last third of the book is a little exhausting to read, since is it not written any longer in full sentences, but only in headlines and abreviations.
The best and funniest part of the book are the footnotes, in which the author wittily comments on his own accomplishments when the books was first published twenty years later. Since this diary is certainly a unique document, it is a real pitty that Fleming did not use his notes to develop them into a fully fledged book like One's Company: A Journey to China in 1933 or News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir (Marlboro Travel). Instead, he forgot his notes in a drawer, and when he recovered them, he had lost all the details.