Tai-Pan [Hardcover]

James Clavell (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 590 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press (March 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385314485
• ISBN-13: 978-0385314480
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,927,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Clavell, who died in 1994, was a screenwriter, director, producer, and novelist born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Although he wrote the screenplays for a number of acclaimed films, including The Fly (1958), The Great Escape (1963), and To Sir With Love (1967), he is best known for his epic novels in his Asian Saga.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Historical Fiction - It is great!, January 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: James Clavell's Tai-Pan

This is a fictionalized account of the life of William Jardine (called Dirk Struan in "Tai-pan")- founder of the trading giant Jardine Matheson & Co. Ltd. This is the "Princely Hong" which is refered to as the Noble House of Hong Kong in Clavell's books.

This book is riviting- and somewhat illuminating historically. If you long for the good old days- take a peek into the 19th century- you will change your mind real fast!

This book grabs you from the first pages, and holds you till the last- it is a masterpeice!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic historical fiction -- an unforgettable saga, April 10, 2008

By 

Roger J. Buffington (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: James Clavell's Tai-Pan. (Hardcover)

I did not expect to find another novel by James Clavell that I liked as well as Shogun or King Rat. But Tai-Pan is, indeed, that novel. This is a magnificent saga of the founding of Hong Kong by powerful British trading interests, which manipulate the British government towards establishing Hong Kong as Britain's trading outpost in the Far East.

Even more, this is the story of an unforgettable fictional character, Dirk Struan, founder of The Nobel House, the leading British trading combine in China. Struan is determined to open up China to Western trade, and to "bring China into the family of nations." This novel is his story, and it is wonderfully told. Struan and the other characters in this novel spring to life, and this is an absorbing novel that is almost impossible to put down. Struan struggles to combine the best traits of the British democratic system and the wisdom of China, of which he notes, "the Chinese are a wise smart people, even if they don't build good cannons like Europeans..." and he admonishes his ship's crews to adopt Chinese practices of good hygiene and other sanitary practices. In this novel Clavell explains the opium trade, and how it came to be an evil that was nevertheless central to the China trade in these times.

This is a novel of intrigue. Struan and his Noble House are locked in a life-and-death commercial and family blood feud with Brock & Sons, another powerful British firm that vies with The Noble House for primacy in trade with China. And the intrigue does not stop there--Clavell introduces us to a breathtaking 19th Century Russian scheme for world dominance in which Struan manipulates Britain, Russia, and the fledgling United States as the world of this time, the 1840s, is seen to be racked with war and political and economic conflict.

This is a fabulous novel of China that no one should pass up. Five stars.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!, July 22, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Tai-Pan (Hardcover)

Right behind Shogun as the best James Clavell book. Total excitement and adventure. A must-read