Teach Yourself Chinese by HR Williamson (EUP, 1947)

I've been glancing through this book; it uses unsimplified characters with Wade-Giles romanization, so it's hardly going to be anyone's first choice as a textbook these days, but like the other Teach Yourself books of its era it's a lovely little hardback ("Produced in Great Britain in complete conformity with the Authorised Economy Standards"—paper was still in short supply).  At 530pp I think it's the fattest EUP Teach Yourself book I've ever seen.

The author seems to have been this chap, who must have been very disappointed by the turn that China took towards the end of his life, but who would have been cheered and astonished to see the number of mainstream Protestant churches in England now with well-attended Chinese-language services.  The book consists of 40 dialogues: text in Wade-Giles and side-by-side translation verso, vocabulary and corresponding hanzi recto.  At the back are vertical Chinese-character texts of all the dialogues, grammar notes, a very large and clear list of characters with romanizations and translations, a list of radicals, and a list of the characters arranged by Wade-Giles.  It's a comprehensive book clearly aimed mainly at missionaries who are going to go Out East and live in a Chinese environment heavily mediated by lots of servants.  Sample dialogue: Master: "You did not make the bed properly yesterday.  I did not sleep very well."  Servant: "I am sorry sir.  There was too much to do yesterday, and I couldn't overtake the work."  Mao hadn't quite won by 1947, but even then it should have been clear that that old style of expat life in China was on its way out.  You can trace the shrinking of the British Empire by the last publication dates of language primers for colonial officials and their families (I've seen several books on Malay from the 50s whose purpose is to enable exaperated wives to yell instructions and rebukes at 'native' cooks and houseboys).