James Clavell · 1966 · sea

James Clavell's 1966 epic. In 1841, as the guns of the Opium War fall silent, Dirk Struan - the Tai-Pan, supreme master of the great trading house Noble House - gambles everything on a barren rock the British have just seized. From the factories of Canton and the alleys of Macau he stakes his fortune and his life on building Hong Kong into the crossroads of an empire.

1. 1
   Canton

   Up the Pearl River at Canton, where traders are penned in their factories, Dirk Struan has built Noble House into the greatest of the China traders on a tide of opium, silver and tea - its Tai-Pan, its supreme lord.

2. 2
   Macau

   In the old Portuguese enclave of Macau, amid its intrigues and rivalries - above all his blood-feud with Tyler Brock - Struan lays his plans and plots the future of the House against the men who would see him ruined.

3. 3
   Hong Kong

   Struan stakes everything on an island the British have wrung from China - Hong Kong - determined to raise from its shores the free port that will be the crossroads of an empire and the seat of Noble House.