Something from the pre-1949 period: China Coast Tales (30 MB PDF), by Lise Boehm, whose real name was Elise Williamina Edersheim Giles – as in the wife of the Giles of Wade-Giles.
From “Playing Providence” (1897):
[quote]Fifteen years of Formosa, and some twenty-five of China, had rotted away many of the good qualities with which Eugen Gregorius had started in life. The general demoralisation of the foreigners around him, caused in part by a deadly climate, in part by want of occupation, in part by too much ready money easily available, had slowly but surely affected even the sturdy Teuton. By dint of much fever he had almost become feverproof; by dint of hard drinking – not excessive but steady imbibing – he had become callous to suffering in himself or in others; by dint of losing his friends, or by being forgotten of them, he had become hard-hearted, with no pleasures in life but mere animal pleasures, – good food, and a good bed, and with no horizon beyond the very day he was then living.
It had not been altogether Formosa that had made him thus…[/quote]
See also [url=Expat fiction, 1890-1911 fiction, 1890-1911[/url].