This history describes and analyses brothel prostitution in Singapore between 1870 and 1940. The vital role of Chinese and Japanese prostitutes in sustaining Singapore's pre-war economy and society has not been fully recognized.

Starting with village backgrounds in rural China and Japan, and the hazards of the trade in women and children, the author follows the prostitutes through their encounters with brothel life in general, and in particular explores their routines and crises of earning, spending, social relations, leisure, mobility, disease, and death. A rare portrait of the daily lives of the ah ku and karayuki-san emerges. It is also a historical account of human nature, of human relationships compelled by the pride and prejudice of the human spirit.

The author has used Coroners Inquests and Inquiries, statistical and other records, as well as photographs and oral reminiscences to resurrect the lives of the ah ku and karayuki-san.

By organizing the case material around themes relating to the workplace and working conditions, the author has converted a mass of depositions into an 'inner history', evoking a milieu and sentiment whose details were often clouded by an atmosphere of unease, irony, and danger: of Loh Sai Soh's fatal objection to Lam Loh Suh leaving the brothel: of Otoyo and her penalized client of two years, Lance-Corporal Albert Chacksfield; of the beautiful Duya Hadachi, her experiences of a relationship strained beyond endurance, and the deadly struggle between her paramours; and many, many others.