Astor House, Shanghai (Paperback)

The Astor House Hotel, (known as the Pujiang Hotel in Chinese since 1959), which has been described perhaps hyperbolically as "once the most luxurious hotel in the world," was the first Western hotel established in China. Established in 1846 as Richards' Hotel and Restaurant on The Bund in Shanghai, it has been in its present location at 15 Huangpu Lu, Shanghai, near the confluence of the Huangpu River and the Suzhou Creek in the Hongkou District, near the northern end of the Waibaidu (Garden) Bridge, since 1857.