The second challenge (another example of defamation) to the history that flows through The Concubine Saga came from the Reader’s Cafe in a June 2012 review written by Tilly. This book review site has no search-engine traffic rank according to Alexa.com (at the time I checked) and has only 10 members but according to its Blog Archive it was launched in 2006.
Is this an indication of the popularity of reviews written on this site?
Anyway, Tilly proclaimed for all the world to read as long as the Reader’s Cafe remains an active domain that:
1. The time it took for Robert Hart to sail from England to China was unrealistic.
2. Tilly claimed that Robert Hart could not have been raised to respect women as equals in Victorian England.
3. Robert Hart could not have believed that paying 33 pounds for a concubine was cheap.
4. Tilly called Ayaou, Hart’s concubine, a harlot.
5. Eunuchs were not castrated before they were hired to work in the Forbidden City.
6. Tilly claims there was no such thing as the Santai Dynasty
7. According to Tilly, there was no way that Robert Hart could not have known about the Taiping Rebellion in detail before he learns about it in the novel.
In reply to number one, I never mentioned how long it took Robert Hart to sail from England to China. The original first edition of The Concubine Saga opens as Hart arrived in Hong Kong after a long voyage from England. Hart’s next voyage takes place a few days later from Hong Kong to Shanghai and I assure you that I followed the time span it took to make that voyage from Robert Hart’s own journal that covers his first year in China. He goes into detail about that trip even mentioning the pirates that chased the ship he was on.
The Concubine Saga (a revised and edited version of My Splendid Concubine combined with the sequel Our Hart, Elegy for a Concubine) says in the third paragraph on page 3, “A month earlier, his ship had reached Hong Kong on July 25…”
Maybe I should have said, “his ship from England”. You see, Robert Hart first arrived in Hong, where he stayed for a few days before sailing to Shanghai where he stayed with the Lay brothers before sailing to Ningpo about 100 miles south of Shanghai.
It’s all in Hart’s journals—every step of his journey after he arrived in China. In fact, Hart’s journal does not mention how long it took him to sail from England to Hong Kong other then he was seasick most of the voyage. However, he goes into detail about the voyage from Hong Kong to Shanghai.
Tilly’s next example of defamation was to claim that Robert Hart was not raised to respect women as equals. To make this error meant she probably didn’t read the novel carefully or has attention deficit disorder or short term memory issues.
Continued July 10, 2012 in The Self-Annihilation of Credibility – Part 3 or return to Part 1
_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”
Lloyd Lofthouse 
Comments are welcome — pro or con. However, comments must focus on the topic of the post, be civil and avoid ad hominem attacks.