Folk songs of China

"The first contribution in the album is a comment on an imperial edict issued following the Boxer Rebellion accompanied by illustration of two bowing mandarins celebrating the New Year. This is followed by twelve poems that are anything but folk songs of China, being cheerfully, awful sarcastic verse by the ... anonymous expatriate poet and wit 'A.K.' His contributions range from 'The Song of the Opium Merchants', 'The Song of the Board of Revenue' and 'The Song of the Railway Engineers' to 'The Song of the Revolutionaries' and 'The Song of the Pirates'. Most of the poems contain some reference to foreigners in China. Each poem occupies a full page and is accomapnied by an adjacent full page of amusing black-and-white pen-and-ink caricatures by the Shanghai-based H. Hayter depicting the characters of the poem. Between each page of poem and illustration are two pages, each page bearing a caricature by Hayter (the majority bearing titles) comprising amusing observations on expatriate life in Shanghai and Chinese life at the time."--Hanshan Tang Books List 152.