The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (Weatherhead Books on Asia) (2005)

Shanghai's courtesan houses run on reputation, money, conversation and precarious loyalties. The large cast rewards patient attention to who owes what to whom, rather than a search for one representative heroine. Use the Eileen Chang and Eva Hung translation published by Columbia in 2005, with its cast list and notes. First published in 1892, this novel makes a very different map of urban life from the European drawing room.