Oil for the Lamps of China is a novel by Alice Tisdale Hobart

Alice Tisdale Hobart

Alice Tisdale Hobart born Alice Nourse in Lockport, New York, was an American novelist. Her most famous book, Oil for the Lamps of China , which was also made into a film, drew heavily on her experiences as the wife of an American oil executive in China amid the turmoil of the overthrow of the...

. It was originally published by Bobbs Merrill (Indianapolis) in 1933, and reprinted by EastBridge in 2002 (ISBN 1891936085).

The novel, which became a bestseller in 1934, describes the life in China of a young executive from the early 1900s through the Nationalist Revolution of the 1920s. The young protagonist, Stephen Chase, is successful in understanding China and building business, but in the turmoil of China's Nationalist Revolution of the 1920s, he is betrayed by the company and by the new China which emerges. The author's husband was an executive for the Standard Oil Company.

It was the basis of a 1935 film by the same name

Oil for the Lamps of China (film)

Oil for the Lamps of China is a 1935 drama film starring Pat O'Brien and Josephine Hutchinson. It is based on the novel of the same name by Alice Tisdale Hobart. A man blindly puts his faith in his employer.-Plot:...

 starring Pat O'Brien

Pat O'Brien (actor)

Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...

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