Simon Greenall's piece about publishing in China (which I blogged here) prompted Macmillan's archivist, Alysoun Sanders, to dig into our records. This is what she found.
 
'Unlike the relationship with India, the history of Macmillan in China has not been documented at all, but I found evidence that the first rep and school traveller for Macmillan & Co Ltd in China, Fred G Whittick was appointed on 1 July 1907 - almost a century ago - and according to the agreement with him sales to China in the previous year, 1 July 1906 to 30 June 1907, were approximately £2,700. Enough to justify employing a traveller, I suppose.'
 
£2700 in 1906 when inflated in line with the retail price index equates to £193,396.72. I wonder how many general publishers have that much invoiced business in China today?

And now for the plugs.  From Pan Macmillan - Picador to be precise. Cormac McCarthy's new book, the post-apocalyptic The Road, has received a rave review from the New York Times.  Too long to include in its entirety, but this will give you an idea of the reception that we're expecting for this astonishing novel. 
'In The Road a boy and his father lurch across the cold, wretched, wet, corpse-strewn, ashen landscape of a post-apocalyptic world. The imagery is brutal even by Cormac McCarthy’s high standards for despair. This parable is also trenchant and terrifying, written with stripped-down urgency and fueled by the force of a universal nightmare. The Road would be pure misery if not for its stunning, savage beauty.

This is an exquisitely bleak incantation — pure poetic brimstone. Mr. McCarthy has summoned his fiercest visions to invoke the devastation. He gives voice to the unspeakable in a terse cautionary tale that is too potent to be numbing, despite the stupefying ravages it describes. Mr. McCarthy brings an almost biblical fury as he bears witness to sights man was never meant to see.'

This, from a bookseller review on Waterstone's Online, says it all:  'Both terrifying and beautiful, it is about us all, about the best and worst of humankind, and it would be impossible to recommend it too highly.'

And some more from Pan Mac, courtesy of Camilla Elworthy.  In a brilliant address to the assembled ladies at the Windsor Festival on Wednesday, Major General Barney White-Spunner, talking about his forthcoming history of the Household Cavalry, Horse Guards, shared the following information from the book:  In Windsor in the 1850s 'nine soldiers would sleep, eat, wash and store their equipment in a room measuring 28 by 16 feet. They were allowed one roller towel per week between them and their bedding - straw stuffed into palliases - was only changed every two months. Washing facilities included a wooden tub, which stood in the middle of the room and also passed as a urinal at night. There was no running water and no washrooms and even as late as the 1860s the regiment opposed the introduction of water closets as they became blocked with the bundles of hay issued instead of lavatory paper. This last commmodity was eventually issued on the basis of one sheet per soldier every four days.'
No wonder we were so often victorious in battle – the enemy probably ran away from the stench.