First edition. Kelly and Walsh. Shanghai, Hongkong, Singapore, Yokohama, Hankow. 1921. Octavo. 86pp. Colour frontispiece. 40 further photo plates, numerous pen and ink sketches. Original blue cloth, gilt to spine and upper board with vignette. Slightly faded, light wear. Occasional faint toning. Signature "Amory" to ffep. Chinese red booksellers stamp to ffep and title. Small vestige of a tipped in letter to ffep. Samuel Cornell Plant (1866-1921) Know as Pu Lan Tian. The first shipmaster to command a merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze River through gorges from Yichang to Chongqing. Plant created the Sichuan Steam Navigation Company, providing the first steam service on the Upper Yangtze as Captain of SS Shutung and SS Shuhun. From his houseboat, The Junie, he charted the waters of the gorges. "Plant installed the river's navigational marks, established signaling systems, wrote a manual for shipmasters, and trained hundreds of foreign and Chinese pilots." [A.C. Bromfield & Rosemary Lee, "The Life and Times of Captain Samuel Cornel Plant, Master Mariner and Senior Inspector, Upper Yangtze River, Chinese Maritime Customs," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 41 (2001)]
Octavo. Accordion fold. Early twentieth century. 10 watercolour paintings on two layers, silk with borders in contrast woven silk, each faced with accompanying biographical text in Chinese and English. Edges gilt. Original wooden boards with carved vignette coloured in green to upper board 福 = Fu = Blessing. Title plate in Chinese in red and black to endpaper: 中國古代名人圖 = Zhongguo gu dai ming ren tu = Ancient Chinese Celebrities. Error in English title which should read Ten, not Twelve. (Yang Kwei-Shan / Li Chung-Ting / Su Wen-Chung / Chu Wen-Kung / Pai Wen Kung / Li Tai-Pai / Yen Chung-Chieh /Han Wen-Kung / Major General Wang / Tigar Head Koo). Not held in the British Library. No copies held in any UK libraries.
Printed for W. Simpkin & R. Marshall. London. 1833. 12mo. 7x12cm. xii, 152pp. Engraved frontispiece. Part 2 has separate half-title and preface. Contemporary quarter calf, marbled boards. Gilt to spine. Chipped to head of spine, rubbed with wear to corners and edges. Lightly toned, some offsetting of frontispiece to title. "The Oeconomy of Human Life purports to be an English translation of an ancient Indian text found by a Chinese scholar in Lhasa." Attributed to Robert Dodsley, the bookseller, it became a bestseller. The first part is attributed to Robert Dodsley, dedicated to P. D. Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; the second is attributed to John Hill, also dedicated to the Earl of Chesterfield. A system of mystical instruction: a translation of the most ancient manuscript found in the Grand Temple of Thibet by Cao-Tsou. The original "author" has been variously identified as Dandamis, Confucius, Lao-tse or the Brahmins, and in the ancient Egyptian teachings of Amenhotep IV, Pharaoh of Egypt. Or there may have never been an original at all. The Economy was republished as 'Kuthumi' by the Theosophists in 1886. See: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Third Series, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct., 2009), pp. 439-458 Bray, John. The Oeconomy of Human Life: An 'Ancient Bramin' In Eighteenth-Century Tibet.
First American edition. Printed by David Carlisle for W. Pelham, and W. P. & L. Blake. Boston. 1803. 12mo. 300pp. Contemporary full calf, spine in six compartments with leather label. Showing some wear to corners and head and foot of spine, small nicks, rubbing and abrasions etc commensurate with age. Slightly strained at title and at 227. Variable foxing and toning, as usual, particularly to the index and last few pages. Louis Marie Joseph Ohier de Grandpré (1761 - 1846) was a French navy officer and former slave trader. Between 1789 and 1790, Grandpré toured the Indian Ocean, beginning at Île de France (Mauritius), and included visits to India, the Seychelles, Vietnam (then Cochin China), Yemen, and Sri Lanka.
Gall and Inglis. London and Edinburgh. nd. [c.1901]. Octavo. 332pp. Frontispiece, 10 further engraved plates. Original pictorial cloth, gilt and black lettering to spine and upper board. Motif to lower board in black. Ffep removed, light ghosting from inscription to verso of frontispiece. Edges spotted, lightly toned. Light rubbing to extremeties. Inscription "J. F. Bishop, Sizecroft Cottage, Kilpeck, Nr Hereford" to verso frontispiece. Bessie Marchant (1862 - 1941) Prolific adventure novelist.
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh for A. & C. Black. London. Octavo (219 x 156mm). 1917 (3rd printing). Title page in red and black. xv, 283pp., (1). Colour frontispiece and 69 further colour plates with printed tissue guards. Folding lithograph map by W. & A. K. Johnston printed in pink and black. Original decorative red cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Hinges repaired. Minor short closed tear to tissue guard to Plate III. A couple of tissue guards toned. A little bubbling to lower board. Slightly bumped and rubbed. Spine slightly faded. Historic bookseller's catalogue slip loosely inserted. Contemporary headed notepaper (unused) from Maidens Hotel, Delhi, printed in red also loosely inserted. A nice bright copy.
First edition. University Press, Cambridge. 1939. xlii, 373pp. 10 plates, folding map, text map, 7 tables. Original green cloth, gilt to spine. Edges untrimmed. Corners lightly rubbed. Map misfolded, with minor chipping to edge. Bookplate to fep of Lancashire Education Committee. Date due label removed from ffep. Brown pocket with card and original catalogue card to rep. Faint mark to top of upper board. This volume, published under the Polynesian Bequest embodies Williamson's manuscripts both published and unpublished. It covers Warfare in Central Polynesia, Kava in Samoa and Tonga, Kava in other Polynesian Islands, The Arioi, and Sex, Courtship and Infanticide. It includes a 14 page bibliography.
Printed for Richard Phillips. London. [1806]. 8vo. 52, (2 [index, directions to the binder and erratum]), folding table. No title page as published. Modern dark blue cloth, upper board lettered in gilt. Uniformly toned, some light spotting, otherwise very good. An abridgement of A Voyage round the World in the years 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804, in which the author visited the principal islands in the Pacific Ocean, and the English settlements of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island. No. 7 in Analysis of New Travels extracted from A Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages and Travels. The folding table of territorial productions of the Morea is inserted as a binders fault and originates from Pouqueville's Travels. This copy is from the library of Gilbert Hampden Manley (1931 – 2008), with his small ownership stamp to upper corner of the ffep. "Collector of Pacific and Asian material. Born in Shanghai; studied zoology at Nottingham and Oxford. Moved to London in the 1950s to continue research at the zoo; became interested in collecting Pacific material. Taught in the Anthropology Department at Durham University from 1974; collected less from this point, but actively researched pieces in his own and others' collections. Christie's, Paris, Art Africain et Océanien, Jeudi 4 Décembre 2008, 5537." British Museum. Ferguson 422; Hawaiian National Bibliography 376; Hill p596.
First English editions. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. London. 1855. Two volumes. Octavo. half title, title, xxxii, 421pp, folding coloured map frontispiece (with no tears); half title, title, viii, 440pp, 24pp publisher's catalogue. Original blind tooled blue cloth, "Bound by Edmonds and Remnants, London" plate to rep, a little bumped, rubbed to edges, corners and spine. Gilt lettering to spine. Endpaper publisher's adverts to both volumes. Free endpaper show slight offsetting from the adverts. Edges untrimmed. Occasional spotting. Neat signature of J. W. Gallant to feps. Neat signature of Oswald Penrhyn dated 1856 to versos of ffeps of both volumes. Oswald Henry Leycester Penrhyn (1828 - 1918) son of Edward Penrhyn. Cousin of Augustus Hare, and executor of his will, mentioned in Hare's The Story of My Life. The Abbé Évariste Régis Huc (1813 - 1860) Missionary and traveller. "We were about to become acquainted, in China, with a civilisation extremely unlike that of Europe, but not less complete in its kind. The climate, too, would be no longer the same, and the means of communication would be greatly superior to those of Tartary and Thibet."
Handwritten letter, in the original envelope, franked Foreign Office. 6.45pm 21 August 23. 19cm x 12.5cm. 4pp. I wonder if you can send me a copy of Journal nos 43-44 of the Bengal Past and Present which is missing in my valued series & never reached me: and also if you can let me have a duplicate of Journal no 29 in which I wrote a paper about the Black Hole Monument. It may interest you to know that in odd moments I am at work on my long promised History of Govt House Calcutta tho I do not wish any announcement made to that effect. Foreign Office 1 Carlton House Terrace S.W.1. August 19 1923 to The Editor, Bengal Past and Present, Calcutta Historical Society, Town Hall, Calcutta. Curzon, George Nathaniel, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925), politician, traveller, and viceroy of India. At the time of writing, he was Foreign Secretary. In January 1924, Curzon vacated the Foreign Office and he was able to devote much of 1924 to completing one of his finest books, a study of Calcutta and the viceroys which was posthumously published under the title British Government in India; the work mentioned in this letter. Sir Evan Cotton (1868-1939) Liberal politician, barrister, administrator, journalist, historian and writer. His Calcutta Old and New, first published in 1909, remains unsurpassed to this day. He was the son of Henry Cotton (Liberal MP) the author of 'New India, or India in Transition' who opposed Curzon's invasion of Tibet and partition of Bengal.
Two volumes. First editions. s.n. London. 1705. s.n. London. 1707. Small quartos. (22), 544, (8)pp; (10), 549, (6)pp. Later full calf, spines in 6 compartments with raised bands and leather labels. Renewed endpapers. All edges sprinkled to volume I. Variable light toning and occasional spotting to Volume I; intermittent light water staining, spotting and toning to Volume II. Paper fault: 2 small holes and corner loss to penultimate page of Volume II with no loss to text. ESTC T94112. Jean Crasset (1618 – 1692) George Webb (1653 – 1725) "The History I have now in hand, speaks of so strange and surprising Adventures which happedn'd at the very utmost extremities of the World, that they may well pass for Romance and Fables." [From the Preface.]
First edition. The British Library and the Howard and Jane Ricketts Collection. London. 2001. 143pp. Photographic illus. Original photographic covers. Includes two folding pamphlets/poster for the exhibition loosely inserted. Published on the occasion of the exhibition held at the Brunei Gallery SOAS London 11 October - 15 December 2001. A crisp and bright copy.
First edition. Hutchinson & Co. London. nd [1925]. xxiv, 286pp. Frontis., numerous further plates and maps. Original blue cloth, gilt to spine. Slightly rubbed to extremities. Page edges spotted. A crisp bright copy.
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection for Harvard University. Washington. 1990. 4to. xiv, 223pp. Tinted frontis., 192 plates. Original cloth, fine, in protected slightly chipped d/w. A very good copy."This book, written in 1946-48 and published in 1950, is still the most important, if also controversial, account of its subject, the widest and richest and best illustrated survey of what the French called in the late eighteenth century the jardin anglo-chinois." From the introduction by Hugh Honour.
Fourth edition. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. London. 1899. Octavo. xiii, (1), 256pp. Engraved frontis., 17 further plates. Original decorative green and blue cloth, gilt to spine and upper board. All edges gilt. Very lightly rubbed to corners. Includes zoological and botanical indices. A very bright copy. COPPINGER, RICHARD WILLIAM (1847–1910), naval surgeon and naturalist
First edition. Charles H. Kelly. London. 1896. Octavo. xii, 240pp. 4pp publisher's catalogue. Tissue guarded photo frontispiece portrait tipped in, folding map with the route coloured in outline, 25 monochrome illustrations. Original decorative green and yellow cloth, gilt lettering to spine and gilt and black lettering to upper board, with heraldic vignette. Bookseller's plate (John Chapman York) to fep. Hinges starting. Tissue guard foxed. Slightly rubbed to extremities. Address "Willowdene 10 Stepney Road Scarbourough" inscribed to ffep. A nice bright copy. "I was perhaps one of the of the last Englishmen to travel the whole distance from the Pacific coast to the Ural Mountains in the old-fashioned way."
Richard Bentley. London. 1852. Octavo. xvi, 25-332pp. (Complete despite pagination) Folding map frontis. Musical notation of an Arab War Cry to p229. Original embossed decorative cloth, gilt to spine, sl. faded. Edges untrimmed. Sporadic foxing/spotting, particularly to title and map. Rough sketch on scrap paper of a house loosely inserted, with a rough unfinished sketch of another house to end pastedown. Faint pencil "Widdrington" signatures to ffep. with faint pencil shelfmark "D.west". Binder's label to end pastedown. Provenance of interest: Armorial bookplate of S. F. Widdrington. From the library at Newton Hall. Shallcross Fitzherbert [Jacson] Widdrington 1826-1917. A traveller, antiquarian and artist. "Dara el Abead. The Coptic Monastery" 1868 is one of his works. Succeeded to the Hauxley and Newton-on-the-Moor Estates on the death of his uncle in 1856, under whose will he assumed the name Widdrington. Shallcross significantly remodelled and enlarged Newton Hall in 1864. The Country House Sale - Newton Hall 20 January 2010. Christies. London. "The Widdringtons were a tremendously wealthy family. Newton Hall and its contents reflect a particular way of life and now it is coming to its end. The hall is a time capsule. Nothing was thrown away." The sale of the contents of the house and its library of books also included a number of watercolours and drawings by Shallcross, including topographical views of Italy, The Dardanelles, Algiers and Egypt. His daughter Frances married Sir Edward Grey of Falloden. His brother Widdrington Jacson (b1824) of the 41st The Welch Regiment was killed by a fall from his horse on the 10th May 1845 in Brecon where there is a memorial monument inscription in his memory. His wife Cecilia Widdrington 1840-1936 was born Cecilia Gregg Hopwood. On all occasions she wore steel-capped workman's boots. With her husband she travelled widely, going up the Nile by streamer before the source had been discovered. Mr Widdrington studied antiquities. Her first child, born after her marriage to Shallcross, was by another man. Roger Fry adored her "She it was who undertook to educate him in the art of love…" Roger Fry - Art and Life by Frances Spalding. Aleen Isabel Cust was born in 1868, one of six children of Sir Leopold Cust. When her father died in 1878, at the age of ten she came under the guardianship of Shallcross Fitzherbert Widdrington at Newton Hall. The Widdringtons encouraged her ambitions: Cecilia believed in careers for women, and she encouraged Aleen to do more with her life than fulfill the genteel expectations of Lady Cust. ODNB
First edition. Smith, Elder & Co. London. 1909. 8vo. x, 331, (8) ads. Photo frontis., 19 further photo plates, folding map. Original cloth, gilt lettering to spine, gilt motif to upper board. Edge untrimmed. Slightly rubbed to corners. Occasional light foxing/spotting. Upper hinge cracked but firm. Small nick to head of spine. Signature of M C Choal, 31 Queens Gardens, Ealing to ffep. Francis Bradley Bradley-Birt (1874-1963) ICS, FRGS, diplomat and writer. "The record of a journey home from India by one of the many overland routes"
First edition. Printed by John Nichols. Sold by Wm. H. Allen et al. London. 1838. Crown octavo. xvi, 310, (1). (1)pp. 18 engraved plates, of which 3 are folding. Original cloth, gilt to spine, with original price in gilt, embossed blind decoration to boards. Bookseller's plate to fep. Rubbed to extremities. Light sporadic foxing. Corner waterstain to plates 1 and 2. Stamp of Thomas Fletcher to fep and ffeps. A contemporary dated signature of historic interest to fep., edge slightly adhered to ffep at gutter. Includes Mundium to Wallajahpet folding map; Malaga to Granada folding map; Prices of the principal instruments as manufactured by Mssrs Toughton and Simms, Fleet Street. Rare: 7 copies held worldwide. 4 copies in UK libraries. JACKSON, BASIL (1795 – 1889) Netherlands, Waterloo, St. Helena with Napoleon Bonaparte (he spoke fluent French), Canada - Rideau canal construction. Professor at East India Company's college at Addiscombe, where this was the textbook. The "Times" noted in 1889 he was "one of the four surviving heroes of Waterloo". He is buried at Goodrich, Herefordshire. The Times (24 Oct 1889); C. Dalton, The Waterloo roll call (1890); CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1889); ODNB. Provenance: Signature of Major G. Blomefield Necton, Norfolk dated 1838 to fep. George Blomefield, son of William Mason, Esq., of Necton Hall, Norfolk, and Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Blomefield, the author of The History of Norfolk. "A Lieut-Col. in the army, who has taken by sign-manual the surname and arms of Blomefield, under the will of the late Francis Blomefield, Esq" (John Burke 1846) George Blomefield Listed as Land Tax Commissioner for the County of Norfolk 1838. National Archives holds: P4/55 Attested copy of declaration (1870) by William Meybohm Rider Haggard of Bradenham Hall, Norfolk, esq. That George Blomefield (né Mason) of Necton Hall, Norfolk, is the heir at law of William Mason, his brother, who died intestate 2 Dec. 1865. Annexed: Copy of burial certificate (1866) of William Mason. 11 Sept. 1877 "Colonel George Blomefield, late of Necton Hall, in the County of Norfolk, deceased (who died on the 18th day of June, 1871, and whose will was proved by William Meybohm Rider Haggard, of West Bradenham Hall… the sole executor therein named." London Gazette January 12 1872. Rider Haggard describes attempted blackmail in "Diary of an African Journey": "A hard-faced young man hanging about the door pounced upon me and informed me that he was the son of George Blomefield, alias George Mayes [sic]. The illegitimate child of old Col. Blomefield of Necton Hall, Norfolk. My father, after Col. B's death persuaded old Miss Mason, his sister who had inherited Necton, to make a settlement on him and have him educated; indeed to my father George B. owes everything. Subsequently when Cochrane and I started farming in Natal my father being anxious that G. Blomefield (as he was now called) should make a career in some country where his birth history was not known, arranged that he should enter partnership with us. He did not prove a very good worker and on our return to England after the first Boer war the partnership wound up by mutual consent at Ditchingham. I think in 1882." In the original typescript the lines relating to the blackmail attempt have a line drawn through them, with OMIT pencilled in the margin.
First English edition. W. Swan Sonneschein and Co. London. 1885. Royal Octavo. xix, 428pp. Engraved frontis., Folding map, numerous further engraved plates. Original blue decorative cloth, gilt to spine and upper board. Top edge untrimmed. Tape reinforcement to verso map fold. Pages uniformly lightly toned. Minor shelf wear. Armorial bookplate of Clarence Adams "Vita sine litteris mors est". A bright copy.
