ABSTRACT
In the pages of The Wolf Boy of China; or Incidents and Adventures in the Life of Lyu-Payo, William Dalton compares the Chinese to a mouse content to live inside a 'little box', even though it is aware that a big world exists outside. In disseminating staggering amounts of 'facts' about China, Dalton presents himself as an expert on 'the Celestial Kingdom' who is able to lead children on a comprehensive tour of the country. During the researching and writing process, the authors attempted to harness knowledge, wading through and filtering the mass of information about China for those wishing 'to be made acquainted with the prominent traits of Chinese manners and customs'. Scholars have argued that in the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, British and American writers, such as George Anson, John Barrow, and Charles Dickens, presented negative views of the Chinese as child-like, cruel, corrupt, conceited, dirty, dishonest, ignorant, xenophobic, and afraid to lose face.
