China's History Lost in the West: Late Qing China, 1842–1873, as Recorded by The Illustrated London News

Founded in 1842, the British Illustrated London News was the world's first weekly newspaper devoted primarily to illustrations. With finely detailed, vivid wood engravings and lithographs, it reproduced major events from around the world at the fastest speed that the technology of the time allowed. From its earliest days, the paper took a close interest in the Chinese Empire and dispatched a large number of artist-reporters. From 1857 to 1901 alone, it sent back to Britain more than a thousand sketches of China and hundreds of thousands of words of reportage.

Most were eyewitness accounts from the scene, making them primary sources. Their perspectives on historical events often differed from those found in Chinese historical records, providing an objective point of reference for historical research. Some of the events and details of Chinese social life they reported were blind spots in Chinese historical records. The systematic and continuous nature of their coverage was also something many other Chinese and Western historical sources could not match.