New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. dj. Hardcover first edition - A meticulously researched book, which still leaves an enigma at its center: "To French Jesuit Jean-Francois Foucquet, John Hu, a Chinese widower from Canton and a convert to Catholicism seemed like the perfect choice to serve as the missionary's translator and assistant. So Foucquet took Hu back to Paris with him in 1722, but Hu acted bizarrely on the overseas crossing and was confined for two years in the lunatic asylum of Charenton. Spence narrates their tragic tale in the form of an imaginary log, reconstructed from French, British and Vatican archives. Hu's behavior was clearly irrational:. . but was he insane, and if so, did his journey…
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. dj. Hardcover first edition - A meticulously researched book, which still leaves an enigma at its center: "To French Jesuit Jean-Francois Foucquet, John Hu, a Chinese widower from Canton and a convert to Catholicism seemed like the perfect choice to serve as the missionary's translator and assistant. So Foucquet took Hu back to Paris with him in 1722, but Hu acted bizarrely on the overseas crossing and was confined for two years in the lunatic asylum of Charenton. Spence narrates their tragic tale in the form of an imaginary log, reconstructed from French, British and Vatican archives. Hu's behavior was clearly irrational:. . but was he insane, and if so, did his journey to the West somehow trigger the reaction? " Notes, bibliography, index. Illustrated endpapers. xvii, 187 pp. Dust jacket by Chip Kidd. ISBN: 0-394571908.
THE QUESTION OF HU.
