Paul French’s newest book is a compendium of Shanghai’s Concession-era street names, consisting of a thorough historical and geographical introduction to the international settlements, a two-way index of road names and descriptions of each street. Within the text are hundreds of beautiful photographs, illustrations and reprints of historical advertisements and signs.

The book’s introduction charts the naming of Shanghai’s streets from the 1845 Land Regulations that governed the British settlement up until 1946, when the foreign concessions were reclaimed by the Nationalists. With the old street names, French is generous with details. He points out that Guangdong Lu ought to have been Guangzhou Lu to fit the pattern of naming north to south streets after cities. When the old spelling system was changed to pinyin, Canton was erroneously transliterated. In both the British settlement and Frenchtown, early street names were simple (Church, Park, Bridge) but were later changed to commemorate war heroes. Other streets were named after Chinese cities and provinces, or natural features. Particularly evocative names include Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing Xi Lu), Alabaster Road (Qufu Lu) and Blood Alley (Xikou Lu).

French’s blog, chinarhyming.com, charts the destruction of old neighborhoods across the city, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of old Shanghai is obvious from the book’s rich detail and scope.

"The Old Shanghai A-Z" available for RMB200 at Garden Books.