Maurice Collis, Cixi and Barnett Freedman

I’d never seen this cover for Maurice Collis’s biography of Cixi, The Motherly and Auspicious. If you don’t know the prolific Burma and China Hand Collis there’s a few posts on him on China Rhyming (use the search box opposite). As we’re talking covers this one is by the British artist and designer Barnett Freedman. This edition first published by Faber and Faber in 1943. Freedman went on to do more covers for Faber and Collis. Collis had seen Freedman’s work and specifically requested him to design his book jackets. Here’s the Kirkus Review for the book published in the the USA in 1944.