author
Isaac Taylor Headland
1859–1942
An American Methodist missionary, teacher, and writer, he spent many years in China and turned that experience into books that introduced Western readers to everyday Chinese life and imperial court culture. His work reflects both close observation and the assumptions of his era, making it historically revealing as well as readable.
2 Audiobooks
Court Life in China: The Capital, Its Officials and People
by Isaac Taylor Headland
The Chinese Boy and Girl
by Isaac Taylor Headland
About the author
Born in Freedom, Pennsylvania, in 1859, Isaac Taylor Headland studied at Mount Union College and Boston University School of Theology before leaving for China in 1890 as a Methodist Episcopal missionary. He went on to teach in Beijing and later served as principal of the Anglo-Chinese College in Fuzhou.
Headland became widely known through books and articles about China written for English-speaking readers. Among his better-known works are The Chinese Boy and Girl, Court Life in China, and Home Life in China, books that drew on his years in the country and helped shape how many American readers imagined Chinese society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
After returning to the United States, he joined the faculty of Mount Union College, where he taught until becoming professor emeritus. He died in 1942. Today he is remembered as a missionary author and educator whose writings offer a vivid, if period-bound, window into China as he saw it.