For background to the Boxer Rebellion, two of the best sources are Peter Fleming’s The Siege of Peking, London 1959, and particularly L.R. Marchant’s introductory notes to The Siege of the Peking Legations. A Diary by Lancelot Giles, Nedlands, Western Australia, 1970. Both books along with Diana Preston’s The Boxer Rebellion: The dramatic story of China’s War on foreigners that shook the world in the summer of 1900, London 1999, provide excellent descriptions of the siege, the relief attempts and the subsequent events. One of the best accounts of the relief expedition, albeit from the American view, is A.S. Daggett, America in the China Relief Expedition, Kansas City, 1903. For a good overall contemporary account of the rebellion, see Arthur H. Smith’s China in Convulsion, New York, 1901. The historiography of the rebellion, the rise of the Boxers, and their legacy is well laid out by Paul A. Cohen in History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, New York, 1997.
The uniforms and costume worn by the belligerants during the Boxer Rebellion are discussed and illustrated in Lynn E. Bodin and Chris Warner’s The Boxer Rebellion, London, Osprey, 1979.
There are numerous published diaries and first-hand accounts of the siege of the Peking Legations, making it one of the most chronicled events in Asian military history. Good examples include W.A.P. Martin, The Siege of Peking, London 1900, and the diary by Lancelot Giles referred to above; a recent compilation of some letters and diary accounts is Frederic A. Sharf and Peter Harrington’s China 1900. The Eyewitnesses Speak, London 2000, which also includes an excellent bibliography of these sources. For the art generated by the rebellion, see Frederic A. Sharf and Peter Harrington, China 1900. The Artists’ Perspective, London 2000.