Robert van Gulik with wife Shui Shih-fang 1946
Sample of authors
Gulik, Robert van
Robert Hans van Gulik was born in Zutphen, the Netherlands, and grew up in Batavia (now Jakarta) in the former Dutch East Indies, where his father served as a medical officer in the Dutch Army. Van Gulik’s father collected Chinese porcelain and passed his interest on to his son who taught himself Mandarin. Robert van Gulik was fascinated by Chinese history and culture, and he became an authority o...
Literary figures
Arthur Crook
Gender: Male
An unpolished and vulgar lawyer – whose judicial methods are questionable – but also a clever crime investigator, in books by Anthony Gilbert (pseud. f. Lucy Beatrice Malleson). Arthur Crook, fat and one hundred percent cockney, is sometimes compared with a frog, appearance-wise, even though he has red hair, a red face and never wears anything but cheap brown suits. He enjoys drinking beer and doe...