The story of the publication is this: In 1833 the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions asked Dr. Elijah Coleman Bridgman, the first U.S. Protestant missionary to China, to obtain a set of wood printing blocks containing the Sermon on the Mount and a supply of Chinese paper and to send these to Boston. The purpose was to use the wooden blocks to cast stereoplates in hopes that their long-lasting qualities and relatively low amortized cost would obviate the need to develop a system of producing Chinese in roman characters or an entirely new alphabet to be used on presses printing from moveable type. All reports are that only a small number of copies were printed from the plates; the exercise was, after all, an experiment, and indeed a commitment to moveable type was soon made for printing work going forward.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and COPAC locate only four holding libraries worldwide of this text, at Harvard-Yenching, Cambridge University (in the collection of the British and Foreign Bible Society), the Boston Athenaeum, and the Massachusetts Historical Society; but we know of a copy at the Watkinson Library, Trinity College, Hartford. All other copies reported are microforms, all taken from the copy at the Yenching Library.

Provenance:  Signature of William Jenks on wrapper with date of 1834. Jenks was a Congregational Minister, member of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, and founder of a mission for seamen; he opened the Mariner's Church on Central Wharf, in Boston. Besides his pastorate, he was a scholar and author who taught Oriental Languages and English at Bowdoin College; a member of the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the New England Historic Genealogical Society; and a founding member of the American Oriental Society.

•  Spillett, Catalogue of Scriptures in the Languages of China, 36; Darlow & Moule 2481. Not in Shoemaker. On the history of this printing of the Sermon, see: Chinese Recorder, Vols. 10–11, p. 208.   Printed on Chinese paper and bound (sewn) in the Asian style, in yellow wrappers; small piece missing from corner of rear wrapper at spine and another corner chipped and repaired. Housed in a quarter red morocco tray case. A fine copy.  (31850)

•  Not in Brinkman. Contemporary cartonné binding covered in decorative printed paper, shown above right; spine showing a small undarkened area where label is now lacking. Front joint tender. Lacking two leaves, pp. 33/34 and 39/40; some signatures loosening. Pages with a very few small spots, otherwise clean and pleasing.

Languages charted in these tables include “Tartares Mouantcheoux,” Tamoul, Telongou, Persian (ancient and modern), Armenian, Russian (ancient and modern), Coptic, Hebrew, etc., with the engraving done by master artisan Robert Bénard (fl. 1750–85).

•  Half green calf with green marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; slight wear to corners and spine extremities. Lacking one plate (#25); another with a small hole outside image and a circlet of darkening around that, from a cigarette ash (#6). Light soiling and spots, a corner or two a little chipped or bent; a handsome gathering. (24823)

These books feature a grand total of 114 full-color plates depicting all the dishes. The glossy double-sided plates are divided sectionally in vol. I, gathered at the beginning of vol. II, and grouped as prospective dinner menus in vol. III; all three volumes are additionally illustrated with black-and-white photographic images from Pei-Mei's career.

•  Vol. I: Publisher's brightly color-printed paper–covered boards, vols. II and III in publisher's original dust wrappers over green and yellow cloth, respectively; vol. I with moderate shelfwear to edges and extremities, vol. II wrapper with extremities rubbed and a few small edge nicks, vol. III wrapper with spine extremities chipped and small scuff to back joint. Front free endpaper of vol. I with inked gift inscription dated 1977. Pages of vols. II and III very clean and white, vol. I slightly age-toned but otherwise clean. Very attractive copies of a set seldom found all volumes together.  (30289)

16 steel-engraved maps

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with early pencilled inscription reading “Mary William own Book Syracuse Newyork [sic].”

•  American Imprints 24673.   Publisher's quarter tan straight-grained sheep and printed paper–covered sides; spine and extremities scuffed, paper darkened with spots of staining. Front free endpaper with inscription as above; back free endpaper excised. Variously foxed. A strong, charming, interesting schoolbook — inside and out.  (30508)

Because the documents in this volume were all transacted using notaries, it is an excellent paleographical teaching tool. It is also a great source for teachingmercantile mathematics of the early 17th century, for there are many pages of cyphering and numerous accounting documents showing costs and expenses.

And, obviously, it isa primary source on the silk trade in the great port city of Seville during a full-decade period.

Binding:  Contemporary red goat nicely tooled in gilt to form two concentric oblong panels, each accented with corner devices and with a gilt central medallion in the middle of each cover. Strong, handsome gilt lettering to front cover. Green and gold silk ties.

•  Binding shows some abrasion and small loss of leather. A volume in good state, entirely legible and solidly bound.  (32637)

The monograph's originalcolor-painted beaux-arts wrappers are bound in at the front and back here, including the spine in front (rubbed and faded, hinting at original splendor). The title-page is printed in red and black. An extensive index appears at the end.

Binding: Three-quarter evergreen morocco bordered with gilt fillets over bubble gum and mint marbled paper boards; spine with raised bands, gilt-framed compartments containing author, title, date, and appropriate devices in gilt; endpapers matching marbled boards and top edge gilt.

•  For J. Jacquemart, see: The Nineteenth Century, Vol. IX, pp. 681–90.   Leather lightly scuffed at extremities and sunned to a woody green on spine and upper front cover; offsetting from turn-ins onto endpapers. Mild to (occasionally) moderate foxing throughout and old water damage on a few leaves only.  (30132)

printing operations

•  NSTC 2L4183; not in Goldsmiths'-Kress. Removed from a nonce volume and now in a Mylar folder. Pages clean. (10991)

For COMMERCE / TRADE /
        FINANCE / ECONOMICS,  click here.
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•  Original front wrapper present, but not rear one. Some chipping and definite wear, especially along spine. Old ink notations. A good copy. (9383)

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This set includes two volumes of supplemental text, adding a number of entries. The first edition was followed by two volumes of supplemental plates, not present here and not called for: Graesse describes this edition as “sans grav.”

The pagination is erratic in a number of places; there is a numbering gap from 2342 to 2351 between vols. IV and V, but the text and signatures are uninterrupted.

Uncommon: OCLC locates only two U.S. institutional holdings of this second edition.

Provenance: Most volumes with small inked ownership inscription in an outer margin: “G.R.W.” the mark of William Rollinson Whittingham (1805–79), fourth Episcopal Bishop of Maryland and an enthusiastic book collector.

•  Brunet, IV, 851; Graesse, V, 429. Not in Sabin.   Contemporary half binding, recently rebacked with tan paper, spines with printed paper labels; boards rubbed and faded with small chips, one vol. with front cover waterstained. Foxing almost throughout, generally no worse than moderate; light waterstaining in upper margins of vol. I; one leaf in vol. VII with lower outer portion torn away, with loss of words from about 18 lines on each side. Vol. II with printer's error replacing pp. 1065–72 with duplicates of pp. 1057–64; pagination erratic in other places. Most vols. with ownership mark as above; vol. VI with one pencilled and one inked marginal annotation.  (25862)

Uncommon.  OCLC locates only five copies in the U.S., of which one has been deaccessioned.

•  Recent boards covered with German-style brown paper specked with black; paper label on front cover. Paper a little cockled on back cover. Old shelving numbers on verso of title-page and a four-digit number inked in lower margin of leaf A1; few dog-ears and one pencilled note.  (24768)

Additionally, both the Chinese and English texts are presented on a folded slip of paper, with additional commentary in Chinese characters only.

The ivory is mounted within a black frame affixed to a small square of gold paper, on red velvet, and contained in a beautiful, eminently displayable case covered in olive-green silk with a woven Asian-inspired knotwork pattern in bronze and blue, decorated with a Chinese-printed label on the front cover. The case closes with a fabric loop and white-painted wooden toggle.

•  Box as above, showing the faintest hint of rubbing to one corner, overall in excellent condition. Small compartment beneath presentation window seems to indicate a long slender item was at one point laid in, but it is difficult to say what that might have been.  (30544)

•  Publisher's yellow cloth, front cover and spine stamped in green and gilt, binding dust-soiled and damp-stained with corners rubbed; lower edges of early pages and inner margins of some plate slightly waterstained (plates themselves undamaged, one lightly spotted). While the binding and some other bits of this volume have suffered a bit, the important parts are still gorgeous and, of course, the price has been adjusted to fit the facts.  (31976)