A succession of Chinese emperors constructed over the course of a century a fantastical garden, the basis of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," to which governing of the country was in time transferred from nearby Peking. A microcosm of China, with palaces, pavilions, and other edifices set among hills and valleys and a network of rivers and lakes, the reality of this garden is employed as the setting for two fictional stories of unrequited love,...