I would recommend this book to everyone who enjoys historical fiction or just great writing and good stories.

Wikipedia Noble House (novel) - Wikipedia

The second part of the arrangement, Struan agreed that a member of the Chen family would forever be comprador of Noble House. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. The book touches on many of the taboos and prejudices of the British community, most of which would come as a shock in present days. The initial print run of 250,000 copies of Noble House was the largest in the 17-year history of Delacorte Press.

Those with normal feet were peasants, servants, low-class prostitutes, amahs or workers, and despised. Tyler Brock, Struan’s rival from their early opium-smuggling days, also heads a large trading fleet, second in size only to Struan’s. To this end, he seeks partnership with American millionaire Lincoln Bartlett, while trying to ward off his arch-rival Quillan Gornt, who seeks to destroy Struan's once and for all.

TAI-PAN | Kirkus Reviews

Although the novel features many characters, it is Dirk Struan and Tyler Brock, former shipmates and the owners of two massive (fictional) trading companies who are the main focal points of the story. The novels all center on Europeans in Asia, and together they explore the impact on East and West of the meeting of these two distinct civilizations. Throughout the novel, both men seek to destroy each other in matters of business and personal affairs. Their rocky and often abusive relationship as seamen initiated an intense amount of competitive tension. So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel.The novel is over a thousand pages long, and contains dozens of characters and numerous intermingling plot lines. His great love now is May-may, whose magnificently shameless dialogue is an original mixture of Scottish-Chinesepigin English. Ian Dunross: tenth tai-pan of Struan's, who rose to that office in 1960 and took the company public. James Clavell, the son of a Royal Navy family, was educated in Portsmouth before, as a young artillery officer, he was captured by the Japanese at the Fall of Singapore. Clavell said he made one of the American female characters Armenian because it was "the unexpected thing" and because his friend David Hedison was Armenian.

Tai-Pan book by James Clavell - ThriftBooks Tai-Pan book by James Clavell - ThriftBooks

James Clavell's Tai Pan is a book to read for all those starving for a vision of life possibilities and for the hero within us.The New York Times said the book was not as notable as King Rat but was "almost an archetype of pure story telling. Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. Wat for should the only true God, who is therefore fantastical clever, say only one wife, heya, which is terrifical stupid? The "Noble House" in the title is the nickname of Struan's, the trading company first introduced in Clavell's Tai-Pan.