Geoffrey Robley Sayer (1887–1962) completed this book before World War II as a sequel to his earlier work, Hong Kong: birth, adolescence and coming of age, which was published in 1937. The first book covered the period 1841–1861 and in this second instalment, which is now published for the first time, the author continued his history of Hong Kong down to 1919, a time which he could himself recall, having joined the Hong Kong civil service as a cadet in 1910.