author

Constancia Serjeant

Best known today for the historical novel A Tale of Red Pekin, this early-20th-century writer published fiction for younger readers with a strong sense of adventure and faith.

1 Audiobook

A Tale of Red Pekin

A Tale of Red Pekin

by Constancia Serjeant

About the author

Constancia Serjeant is a little-documented author whose surviving public record is centered on her books rather than her life story. Her best-known work, A Tale of Red Pekin, was published in London by Marshall Brothers in 1902, and the book itself credits her as the author of A Threefold Mystery and The Young Acrobats as well.

A Tale of Red Pekin is a juvenile historical novel set during the Boxer Rebellion in China, and modern library and ebook records continue to identify it as her principal surviving title. From the evidence available, Serjeant appears to have written adventure and religiously themed fiction for young readers, combining dramatic settings with moral conviction.

Because reliable biographical sources on her are scarce, many personal details about her life remain unclear. What can be said with confidence is that her work has lasted long enough to be preserved by major public-domain archives and library catalogs, giving new readers a window into a distinctive corner of Edwardian-era children's fiction.