In Bangkok: Siam’s Capital Through Foreign Eyes, 1895-1935

A fascinating and diverse collection of travel writings from visitors to Bangkok 1895-1935. Richly illustrated with contemporary artwork and photographs.

＂What is Bangkok like?＂ asked an American visitor, rhetorically in 1903. Some answer the question by relying on cliches ’Venice of the east’ or ’city of places in temples’. Others insisted that its contrasts and contradictions made an easy description impossible.

Bangkok at the turn of the 20th century was a city in transition, mixing as it did east with west and traditions with modernity. Here live the diverse communities which made it what it is today but this collection of writings by a huge variety of visitors to Bangkok captures the city through foreign eyes.

In Bangkok is a collection of texts which reflect the foreign experience of the city the foreigners in question being both long-term residence and short-term visitors. It draws on a wide range of sources including travel books, memoirs, novels, short stories, verses, inscriptions, newspaper reports, directories and advertisements. It is richly illustrated with contemporary artwork and photographs.

Graham Jefcoate was born in England and studied English in Library Science in Cambridge and London. He has spent much of his adult life abroad, now a retired librarian living in Chang Mai. He took an increasing interest in Thailand when he became Head of Early Printed Collections at the British Library in London in1997, even becoming a member of the committee of the Anglo Thai Society. In recent years, he has become interested in the life of the Anglo-American community in Chang Mai and the north of Thailand before the Pacific War and gave lectures and worship workshops from his research search at Payap University.