Chiang Yee (; 19 May 1903 – 26 October 1977), self-styled as "The Silent Traveller" (哑行者), was a Chinese poet, author, painter and calligrapher. The success of The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland (1937) was followed by a series of books in the same vein, all of which he illustrated himself. 1903–1933: China Chiang Yee was born in Jiujiang, China, on a day variously recorded as 19 May or 14 June. His father was a painter. His mother died when he was five. Chiang Yee married Tseng Yun in 1924, with whom he was to have four children. In 1925 he graduated from Nanjing University (then named National Southeastern University), one of the world's oldest institutions of learning but also relaunched in 1920 as one of China's earlier modern universities; his degree was in chemistry. He served for over a year in the Chinese army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, then taught chemistry in middle schools, lectured at National Chengchi University, and worked as assistant editor of a Hangzhou newspaper. He subsequently served as magistrate of three counties (Jiujang in Jiangxi, and Dangtu and Wuhu in Anhui). Unhappy with the situation in China then (see Nanjing decade), he departed for England in 1933, to study for an MSc in Economics at the London School of Economics, focusing on English local government, leaving wife and family behind. He did not complete the MSc. 1933–1955: England From 1935 to 1938 Chiang taught Chinese at the School of Oriental Studies (now School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London, and 1938 to 1940 worked at the Wellcome Museum of Anatomy and Pathology. During this period, he wrote and illustrated a well-received series of books entitled The Silent Traveller in..... His first was The Silent Traveller: a Chinese Artist in Lakeland, written from a journal of a fortnight in the English Lake District in August 1936). Others followed: The Silent Traveller in London, the Yorkshire Dales, and Oxford. Despite paper shortages and rationing, these books were kept in print. He wrote The Silent Traveller in Wartime, and, after World War II ended, the series gradually ventured further afield, to Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, New York, San Francisco, and Boston, concluding in 1972 with Japan. He lived for a time with fellow expatriates Hsiung Shih-I, author of a West End hit, and Dymia Hsiung, the first Chinese woman to write a fictionalised autobiography