The Past in Present Knowledge: China in The Illustrated London News of 1842

This paper examines visual and textual representations of China in The Illustrated London News ’s ( ILN ) inaugural issue of 1842, a pivotal year that witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, formally ending the First Opium War. By repurposing images of China that used familiar elements of chinoiserie, the ILN leveraged shared British beliefs about China to buttress its claims of veracity amid shifting geopolitical realities. The ILN ’s textual accounts describing battles and violence that juxtapose tranquil picturesque landscapes may appear incongruous; however, this dissonance serves a cohesive narrative purpose in reassuring reader-viewers that China poses no threat to superior British military power.