作者  (1873年十月20日～1944年元月8日)

 傳記 biography： 《太後與我》 閱讀埃蒙德·特拉內·巴恪思爵士 Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse在历史大观的作品!!!

　　埃蒙德•特拉內•巴恪思爵士（Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse），1873年出生於英國約剋郡的裏士滿（Richmond），祖上是曾經顯赫的奎剋（Quaker）傢族，後就讀牛津大學。 1898年，巴恪思來到北京，由於精通漢語、蒙古語和滿語。1903年，滿清政府擢升他為京師大學堂（後來成為北京大學）法律和文學教授；一年後成為英國外務處專員。1913至1922年之間，巴恪思把大量珍貴的中文印刷書以及部分捲軸和手稿，都捐獻給牛津大學博多萊安（Bodleian）圖書館。巴恪思1944年1月辭世於北京，在臨終前一年，他完成了自傳體著作《太後與我》。在書中，巴恪思以回憶錄的形式記錄了他在清朝末年寓居中國的生活。巴恪思身故後，《太後與我》的手稿由其友人賀普利（R. Hoeppli）醫生轉交給牛津大學博多萊安圖書館保存至今。

Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse, 2nd Baronet (20 October 1873 – 8 January 1944) was a British oriental scholar and linguist whose work exerted a powerful influence on the Western view of the last decades of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). Since his death, however, it has been established that some of his sources were forged, though it is not clear how many or by whom. His biographer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, described him as "a confidence man with few equals." Derek Sandhaus of Earnshaw Books, the editor of Backhouse?s memoirs, after consulting with specialists in the period, argues that Trevor-Roper was offended by Backhouse?s homosexuality and that Backhouse?s undoubted confabulation was mixed with plausible recollection of scenes and details.

LifeBackhouse was born into a Quaker family in Darlington; his relatives included many churchmen and scholars. His youngest brother was Sir Roger Backhouse, who was First Sea Lord from 1938-39. He attended Winchester College and Merton College, Oxford. Whilst at Oxford he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1894, and although he returned to the university in 1895, he never completed his degree, instead fleeing the country due to the massive debts he had accumulated.

In 1899 he arrived in Peking where he soon began collaborating with the influential Times correspondent Dr. George Ernest Morrison, aiding him with translation work. At this time he had already learned several languages, including Russian, Japanese and Chinese. In 1918 he inherited the family baronetcy from his father, Sir Jonathan Backhouse, 1st Baronet. He spent most of the rest of his life in Peking, in the employment of various companies and individuals, who made use of his language skills and alleged connections to the Chinese imperial court for the negotiation of business deals. None of these deals was ever successful.

In 1910 he published a history, China Under the Empress Dowager and in 1914, Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking, both with British journalist J.O.P. Bland. With these books he established his reputation as an oriental scholar. In 1913 Backhouse began to donate a great many Chinese manuscripts to the Bodleian Library, hoping to receive a professorship in return. This endeavour was ultimately unsuccessful. He delivered a total of eight tons of manuscripts to the Bodleian between 1913 and 1923. The provenance of several of the manuscripts was later cast into serious doubt. Nevertheless, he donated over 17,000 items, some of which "were a real treasure", including half a dozen volumes of the rare Yongle Encyclopedia of the early 1400s.

He also worked as a secret agent for the British legation during the First World War, managing an arms deal between Chinese sources and the UK. In 1916 he presented himself as a representative of the Imperial Court and negotiated two fraudulent deals with the American Bank Note Company and John Brown & Company, a British shipbuilder. Neither company received any confirmation from the court. When they tried to contact Backhouse, he had left the country. After he returned to Peking in 1922 he refused to speak about the deals.

Backhouse?s life was led in alternate periods of total reclusion and alienation from his Western origins, and work for Western companies and governments. In 1939, the Austrian Embassy offered him refuge, and he made the acquaintance of the Swiss consul, Dr Richard Hoeppli, whom he impressed with tales of his sexual adventures and homosexual life in old Beijing. Hoeppli persuaded him to write his memoirs, which were consulted by Trevor-Roper, but not published until 2011 by Earnshaw Books.

Backhouse died in Beijing in 1944, unmarried, and was succeeded in the Baronetcy by his nephew John Edmund Backhouse, son of Roger Backhouse.

Accusations of forgery and fabricationThere are two major accusations. The first is that much of Backhouse?s China Under the Empress Dowager was based on a supposed diary of the high court official Ching Shan (Pinyin: Jing Shan) which he claimed to have found in the house of its recently deceased author when he occupied it after the Boxer Uprising of 1900. The diary was contested by scholars, notably Morrison, but defended by J. L. Duyvendak in 1924. Duyvendak studied the matter further and changed his mind in 1940. In 1991, Lo Hui-min published a definitive proof of its fraudulence.

Second, in 1973 the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper received a manuscript of Backhouse?s memoirs, in which he boasted of having had affairs with prominent people, including Lord Rosebery, Paul Verlaine, an Ottoman princess, Oscar Wilde, and especially the Empress Dowager Cixi of China. Backhouse also had claimed to have visited Leo Tolstoy and acted opposite Sarah Bernhardt. Trevor-Roper described the diary as "pornographic," considered its claims, and eventually declared its contents to be figments of Backhouse?s fertile imagination. Robert Bickers, in the Dictionary of National Biography, calls Backhouse a "fraudster," and declares that he "may indeed in his memoirs have been the chronicler of, for example, male brothel life in late-imperial Peking, and there may be many small truths in those manuscripts that fill out the picture of his life, but we know now that not a word he ever said or wrote can be trusted." Derek Sandhaus, however,notes that Trevor-Roper did not consult specialists in Chinese affairs, and seems to have read only enough of the text to have been disgusted by its homosexuality. While conceding that Backhouse fabricated or imagined many of these assignations, Sandhaus finds that others are plausible or independently confirmed and he reasons that Backhouse spoke Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian, the languages of the imperial household, and his account of the atmosphere and customs of the Empress Dowager?s court may be more reliable than Trevor Roper allowed.

NameHe told The Literary Digest: "My name is pronounced back?us" (Charles Earle Funk, What?s the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)