•  Publisher's tan cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in red; corners and spine extremities rubbed, spine darkened, back cover with small stain. Pages age-toned, with one small inked annotation.  (25184)

•  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)

The volume is illustrated with a total of25 wood-engraved plates and a wood-engraved title-page vignette depicting architectural views, native dress, dwellings, and religious sites.

•  American Imprints 12263; Sabin 21891.   Late 19th-century half roan with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; edges and extremities showing moderate shelf wear (refurbished) . Front pastedown with old seminary bookplate, frontispiece and title-page with faded rubber-stamps of the same, one preliminary leaf with inked numeral in lower margin. Most plates with offsetting, pages with scattered light spotting; otherwise clean and unmarked. In fact, a nice copy of an interesting missionary and in part ethnographical work.  (25507)

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)

In any case, this work is a standard early European work on the history of China and of the European travellers and missionaries to it. The details are gleaned from previously published works but were augmented by some unpublished or oral sources.

For Americanists, pp. 301–79 are the most important, being Father Martin Ignacio's account of his voyage from Spain to China by way of the Spanish Main, Mexico, and the Philippines. The pages on his time in Mexico include an important account of the Espejo Expedition to and discovery of New Mexico.

Provenance:  Ex–John Carter Brown Library, with its bookplate.

•  Palau 105504; Adams G868; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 10; Lowendahl 30; Sabin 27778 ; Leclerc 261; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 586/34; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 7j.   19th-century half calf with sprinkled edges; interior with the usual browning and stains that characterize 1580s editions printed at Rome, these varying by section with the paper. Short closed tear to title-page and one leaf with lower corner lost, taking a bit of lowest shouldernote; lacking pp. 263–66 (Franciscans in China — an interesting omission/excision!). Library bookplate on front pastedown with its small release stamps. Rather a nice copy with distinguished provenance for the busted bibliophile.  (28311)

G. Boynton engraved the map of the continent that opens the volume; a dramatic vignette, signed “H,” of a man fleeing from both a menacing crocodile and a pouncing tiger, decorates the title-page and is repeated during the appropriate sailor's tale of adventure. The work is also adorned with a number of additional full-page and smaller wood-engraved illustrations, several of which arevery well hand-colored.

Provenance:  “John N. Cushing jr / from his Mother 1831.”

•  American Imprints 1634. Not in Rosenbach.   Publisher's tan paper–covered sides, original quarter sheep replaced ca. 1880 with cloth spine, part of remaining leather spine laid down; sides stained and abraded, original leather much rubbed, spine extremities worn. Hinges (inside) reinforced of old with cloth tape; front free endpaper mounted, starting to separate along tape edge. Front free endpaper with inked gift inscription as above. Pages moderately foxed, with some corners bumped/dog-eared; last few leaves with outer portions waterstained. Young “John N. Cushing” seems to have read this more than once, but overall not to have abused it!  (29291)

“the troubles in China”

•  American Imprints 40-3037; Goldsmiths'-Kress 3730-3731; Sabin 31107.   19th-century half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels; bindings moderately rubbed overall with some spots of discoloration, three volumes with front joints cracked, sewing holding. Ex–social club library: some spine heads reinforced with library cloth tape, 19th-century bookplates, call number on endpapers, pressure-stamp on title-pages, no other markings. Variously, throughout, sections of waterstaining, browning, offsetting; the occasional leaf torn without loss, chipped, or with margin reinforced; varying degrees of age-toning, with the majority of pages clean. Massive quantities of data on early 19th-century commerce, ready to be made use of for scholarship or simply to serve a reader's pleasure.  (30395)

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)

•  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)