France, 1802

Abstract

At a time when British people knew almost nothing about China, Manning abandoned a promising career as a mathematician to dedicate himself to the study of Chinese culture and society. Manning was dedicated to the cause of social reform; and, unimpressed with how contemporaries such as Coleridge and Wordsworth were looking inwards for inspiration – either to their own minds or the English countryside – Manning looked abroad, instead. There was not a single person in Britain at that time who could teach him Chinese, and so, in his thirtieth year, Manning took advantage of the Peace of Amiens to visit Napoleonic France in the hope of finding a teacher. In Paris, Manning soon found himself feted by the exciting salon culture, meeting some of the Continent’s most prominent literary and political figures, from Madame de Stael and Chateaubriand to Thomas Paine and the novelist Helen Maria Williams. Manning was eventually introduced to the linguist Joseph Hager, the one man in Paris who could introduce him to Chinese texts, but progress was painstakingly slow. In the second half of 1802 Manning explored the Rhine and the South of France, recording his reflections in letters to his father and Charles Lamb. These letters again show Manning as a Romantic traveller, while also revealing his intense interest in observing the social manners and customs of the rural poor. He hoped to carry out a similar project of social observation when he arrived in China.