Foreign Devil
by Janet Fitch
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Foreign Devil: Reminiscences of a China Missionary Daughter, 1909-1935 by Janet Fitch (1909-1992), No. 10648. (San Francisco, CA: Chinese Materials Center, 1981, xviii, 458 pp., [19] pp. of plates).
Janet (Fitch) Sewall is a member of one of the old missionary families, whose ancestors went from Ohio to China in 1870. She acquired her own fond memories over many years in China, first as a child on a college campus in beautiful Hangchow, later as a designer and artist with her artist husband in Peking. She records her life in those years, a time of turbulent changes, with lively imagination and mischievous wit, in a style which will amuse the casual reader and delight “Old China Hands” who were also there in those very different days of long ago. When one considers that Mrs. Sewall's real distinction is as a student of motifs in Chinese art and an artist in many mediums, who has exhibited her paintings, illustrations, and stained glass in several countries on scores of occasions, one feels doubly impressed and grateful that she has now become also a writer and has produced so lively and charming an autobiography.
Adapted from the Foreword, by Marian (Fitch) Exter, No. 10661.