B: The title of the book is from the nineteenth-century Chinese Novels, Translated from the Originals, by J.F. Davis, a governor of Hong Kong. Davis laments the state of Chinese studies in Britain where, "One is at a complete loss to account for the almost total ignorance.
答：這個書名出自一位十九世紀曾經擔任香港總督的約翰．戴維斯（John Davis），在他的中國小說譯作序言中，提到英國人對中國的知識一逕地漠不關心，遠落於法國人之後。