author
Sir Alexander Hosie
1853–1925
A British diplomat and explorer who spent decades in China, he turned long, difficult journeys into vivid books about the country’s landscapes, trade, and daily life. His writing blends first-hand travel narrative with the eye of a careful observer.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1853, Sir Alexander Hosie was a Scottish-born British diplomat, explorer, and writer best known for his years in China. He served in the British consular service there and became widely respected as an expert on western China and Manchuria.
Hosie traveled extensively through regions that were little known to many British readers at the time, including Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan, Tibet’s eastern frontier, and Manchuria. Those journeys fed into books and official reports such as Three Years in Western China, where he described geography, trade, local industries, and everyday life with a strong sense of place.
He was also noted as a plant collector, and his name was later honored in the plant genus Hosiea. Hosie died in 1925, but his work still offers a vivid window into late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China as seen by a traveler who paid close attention to both people and landscape.