The Willow Pattern. Printing and publishing The Haunted Monas-
tery,The Red Pavilion and The Lacquer Screen in Kuala Lumpur
had been a most interesting and instructive experience,and
also financially satisfying.But when these books proved so
popular that orders came in for hundreds of copies,I and my
printer  realized that this undertaking was growing too big
for us to handle. I came into contact with William Heinemann 
Ltd. of London,and they undertook to xxxxxx re-publish the
three novels,and also The Emperor's Pearl and Murder in Can-
ton,bringing out two novels each succeeding year,while Scrib-
ners would bring out the American editions.Heinemann told me
they saw a good market for more than the five volumes of the
New Series,and suggested I write some more novels,xxxxxx to
be published before the final story Murder in Canton.Ma Joong
marrying twins gave me an idea for a new novel that would
chronologically precede Murder in Canton. A fter  I had been
transferred from Malaya to The Hague as Director of Research
in our Foreign Office,I wrote The Willow Pattern,which ap-
peared first in Dutch as a serial in the daily De Telegraaf.
It was printed by Heinemann in substantially the same form as
my ms. I attach to the ms. my correspondence with Mr.Schaank,
a former Director of Waterworks,about the course objects will
take in a current,and I consulted my friend Dr.Haneveld about
the symptoms of the plague.I also made a study of blue-and-
white porcelain,the results of which I summarized in my
Postscript to this novel. 
At that time I was approached by the strip-syndicate Swan
Features of Amsterdam,to create a Judge Dee strip for Dutch and
Scandinavian dailies.I was to write the plots,and train a
professional draughtsman to make the pictures. This was again
a most instructive experience,for it taught me to envisage
a story in pictures,and utilize to the full visual clues. One
of the strip-stories I wrote up in a full-lenght novel, The
Phantom of the Temple. Before I had finished that novel,
however,I was appointed Netherlands Ambassador to Tokyo,con-
currently accredited in Korea,and we left The Hague Jan.1965.
In The Hague I also wrote my Amsterdam thriller The Given Day
and had the English text published in Kuala Lumpur,in 1964.
A Dutch edition was published by van Hoeve in 1963