A recently discovered diary from an American tutor who lived with Puyi and Wanrong offers an new perspective on the young couple’s marriage and the usual portrayal of China’s last emperor and empress as political symbols, victims or exotic caricatures.
It’s astonishing how firmly the tragic story of Puyi and Wanrong, the last emperor and empress of China’s Qing Dynasty, remains in the public imagination. In the West, much of that fascination comes from Bernardo Bertolucci’s lavish 1987 epic The Last Emperor – now 38...