The bitter tea of General Yen by Grace Zaring Stone

The bitter tea of General Yen by Grace Zaring Stone is a novel written in the early 20th century. Set amid Shanghai’s foreign concessions and the turmoil of China’s civil conflicts, it follows Megan Davis, a young American fiancée of a medical missionary, as her ordered ideals collide with political violence and the magnetic presence of the warlord General Yen, observed also through the steadfast, complex figure of Doctor Strike. The story promises a collision of faith, desire, and power across cultural lines as Megan is drawn from safety into danger and moral ambiguity. The opening of the novel places Megan in rain-soaked Shanghai, where a jarring car wreck introduces her to a poised Chinese gentleman and a brusque lesson in authority, even as a French priest tends an injured chauffeur. We learn Megan’s past—New England upbringing, a lost early beauty, a secret, transforming love for Bob the missionary—and see her lodged with the kindly but limited Jacksons, who fret over Miss Reed’s orphanage in Chapei and trade uneasy rumors of General Yen. After a disheartening glimpse of expatriate nightlife, the city abruptly falls to the Cantonese; Doctor Strike arrives, recounts how his brilliant former pupil Yen ousted him yet still inspires his unshaken hope, and the trio witness Northern soldiers cut down trying to enter the Settlement. Through the night Strike secures a safe-conduct from Yen, and when he sets out to rescue Miss Reed, Megan insists on driving; they slip through barricades toward the North Station, only to find, at the edge of the fires and smoke, that the promised guard is not there. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Read or download for free

For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide

Reading Options Url Size
Read now! https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78108.html.images 380 kB
EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78108.epub3.images 2.9 MB
EPUB (older E-readers) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78108.epub.images 2.9 MB
EPUB (no images, older E-readers) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78108.epub.noimages 209 kB
Kindle https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78108.kf8.images 3.0 MB
older Kindles https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78108.kindle.images 3.0 MB
Plain Text UTF-8 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78108.txt.utf-8 353 kB
Download HTML (zip) https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78108/pg78108-h.zip 3.0 MB
There may be more files related to this item.

About this eBook

Author Stone, Grace Zaring, 1891-1991
Illustrator MacFarlane, Barbara (Painter)
Title The bitter tea of General Yen
Original Publication Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1930.
Credits Al Haines
Language English
LoC Class PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature
Subject Missionaries, Medical -- Fiction
Subject China -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction
Category Text
EBook-No. 78108
Release Date
Copyright Status Public domain in the USA.
Downloads 5053 downloads in the last 30 days.
Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free!