Eunuchs are an underrepresented topic in the study of imperial China, which is surprising given their ubiquity at the imperial courts for over two millennia and their importance in keeping the functioning of the palace and the communication between it and the bureaucracy smooth and running. Fortunately, with the rise of disability and gender studies and the increased interest in marginalised groups, there has been a positive development of interest in the study of eunuchs in recent years.

First attested at the princely courts of the first millennium bce, eunuchs notoriously rose to power during the Eastern Han (25–220 ce), Tang (618–907), and Ming (1368–1644) regimes, when their numbers reached the (tens of) thousands. While the size and influence of the eunuch institution of the last imperial dynasty, the Qing (1644–1912), was humble in comparison with that of its predecessors, 2018 saw the publication of two monographs on the history of Qing eunuchs: Norman A. Kutcher's Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule and Melissa S. Dale's Inside the World of the Eunuch. While Kutcher's focus, as the title suggests, is on the early and high Qing up to the reign of Qianlong (r. 1735–96/99), Dale mainly devotes her study to the final decades of the institution until its end in 1923. While some eunuchs continued to serve the last emperor of the Qing at his puppet court in Manchukuo, the last vestiges of an institution that had flourished for over two thousand years died with the last Qing eunuch, Sun Yaoting, in a monastery in Beijing in 1996.

Dale's book is based on extensive archival records, in particular court cases, that allow readers a glimpse into the secretive world of the eunuch, which usually stayed hidden behind the wall of the Forbidden City. It is, therefore, a welcome contribution to the overlapping fields of social, legal, medical, and gender history—although gender plays only a minor part in its narrative because eunuchs were invariably conceived as male in imperial China. Dale focuses on the life cycle and experiences of eunuchs: from undergoing the procedure of emasculation and entering the palace, to adjusting to the microcosm and strict rules of their work environment, to means of exit such as running away, suicide, or retirement. She pays special attention to the policing of the eunuch body, which did not end with the trauma of emasculation, but continued in the shape of constant beatings and other forms of physical punishments by their superiors, eunuchs and non-eunuchs alike. Although, as Dale points out, eunuchs were not slaves in the legal sense, they were dead socially, not only shunned by other members of the imperial bureaucracy, but also by their birth families—which often were responsible for them becoming eunuchs in the first place—and society at large. Even calling them ‘marginalised’ may be a misnomer, since they were living and working at the centre of imperial power in the Forbidden City in Beijing.

The book is divided into nine chapters, plus an introduction and a conclusion. The common thread that binds these chapters together is possibly best summarised by eunuchs’ struggle for agency. Chapter One, ‘The Palace Eunuch System’, provides an overview of the history and framework of the institution under the Qing, including a brief account of its history up to that period. Chapter Two, ‘Routes to the Palace’, describes the different modes of entry, from the trade of the daozi jiang (knifers) who specialised in emasculation, to the rare cases of punitive emasculation, which was a remnant of a practice legally abolished in the sixth century ce at the latest. Much more common than as a legal measure was self-emasculation (zigong), which in practice meant emasculation by a near relative, usually the father. Entry into imperial service was by no means guaranteed to those who had undergone the procedure, as the palace administration conducted extensive background checks and imposed prohibitions on certain social classes (e.g., bannermen) as well as quotas on certain regions (with preference given to those from the north). Those who failed to meet the requirements, if they were so lucky to not end up on the streets of Beijing, often ended up serving in one of the establishments of the Manchu princes.

Chapter Three, ‘Unrobing the Emasculated Body’, deals with the physical and psychological changes that accompanied emasculation. The extent and quality of those changes depended on the age of the person, the physical changes being most dramatic when emasculation occurred before puberty (the palace, it should be noted, preferred eunuchs below the age of twelve). Dale discusses the different ‘reading’ of the eunuch body by Chinese and Western onlookers, as well as ‘imperial anxiety’ about eunuchs being not clean (i.e., not thoroughly emasculated)—which sometimes led to the, often deadly, procedure of a second emasculation—as well as suspicions that some non-emasculates bribed their way into the palace. Chapter Four, ‘Entering the Emperor's Realm’, shows how emasculates became eunuchs—or ‘perfect servants’, to borrow Kathryn Ringrose's word from her monograph on Byzantine eunuchs (University of Chicago Press, 2007). Here, we learn that eunuchs were not simply trained on the job, but that a master-apprentice system was in place that nurtured a sense of mutual responsibility and an esprit des corps, while also opening the door for further abuses. Eunuch society was highly stratified, and the whole system was designed to make eunuchs police and control each other. Some eunuchs received further training and education in special eunuch schools that taught written Chinese and Manchu, and some became religious clerics, actors, musicians, and even physicians in the inner palace, entrance to which was restricted for other males.

Chapter Five, ‘The Parallel World of the Eunuch’, focuses on the private lives of eunuchs under the Qing. One of the intentions of emasculation—apart from keeping the women in the imperial harem pure—was to sever the ties between a eunuch and his family, as eunuchs were unable to continue the family line, which was the core male duty in a society that valued filial piety and service to the ancestors above all. However, since it was often the family that sent a son under the knife in the hope that he may enter imperial service and support the family financially from within the palace, this rarely ever succeeded. While eunuchs were indeed frequently shunned by relatives once they left the palace when they were too old and were no longer able to support their families, family relations of eunuchs were normal under the Qing, as under most regimes in imperial Chinese history. As for other officials, the court offered eunuchs compassionate leave for the death or sickness of a parent. Furthermore, eunuch marriages and adoption, which had been normal under previous dynasties, were also legal under the Qing, although they might have happened more rarely (in fact, so-called foreign or conquest dynasties seem to have been more anxious in their treatment of eunuchs in general). Eunuchs also pursued wholesome and less wholesome activities in the palace during their spare time, such as keeping pets, gambling, drinking, opium smoking (although the latter three were forbidden) and, as often happens when people are cooped up over long stretches of time, fighting and quarrelling.

Chapter Six, ‘Running away from the Palace’, is a reprint of an article published by the author in this journal in 2017. It is based on court records of verbal testimonies by eunuchs who were caught after they had fled the palace. Given the severity and frequency of abuses that eunuchs, especially the younger ones, had to suffer, it is not surprising that many tried to escape from the system. Not only were they regularly caught and sent back, which led to further abuses and punishments, they also had to find out quickly that society did not welcome them. Concomitant to their social death, eunuchs belonged, in a sense, to a category of ‘untouchables’. Only when a eunuch managed to disguise his emasculated identity could he hope for employment outside the palace. The fact that Dale devotes the whole of Chapter Seven to suicides shows that those often were the only escape route left—if they succeeded, because punishments for attempted suicide were severe, as they not only diminished the palace workforce but also contaminated the inner palace.

The last two chapters are on exits: Chapter Eight deals with how eunuchs left the system at the end of their lives due to sickness, retirement, discharge, or death. Chapter Nine, ‘Surviving the Fall of the Qing’, treats the eunuch system after 1912. Although the Qing formally ended in that year, approximately three thousand eunuchs remained in the palace, of which half had fled by 1923. In that year, the last emperor, Puyi, on the pretext of extensive theft by the remaining eunuchs, expelled all but 175 of them (by 1945, there still were ten left in his service).

The book only has minor shortcomings. One is the selective and uneven use of primary sources versus secondary literature. A more detailed discussion of the nature and quality of the archival material would have been of interest, although perhaps not to the general reader. It seems that Dale had to cut many details following the demands of her publisher, a fate suffered quite often by academic publications in the anglophone world. The discussion of eunuch gender identity and their presumed marginalised status seems forced at times. That notwithstanding, the book is an excellent contribution to the social history of imperial China that brings to life the world of the eunuch and should be on the syllabus of every class on the gender history of China.