101. The journals of Major James Rennell first surveyor-general of India written for the information of the governors of Bengal during his surveys of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers 1764-1767. Calcutta: printed at the Baptist Mission Press and published by The Asiatic Society, 1910.
$325
4to, pp. iv, [2], 148; portrait in 3 colors, large folding facsimile and a large folding map with some neat reinforcement on the verso; recent dark blue cloth lettered in gilt on spine and upper cover; generally fine.
102. Index to the mythological box of Hindoo paintings. [Odisha, India: ca. 1840].
$2,500
4to, manuscript text, pp. [8], 165, [1]; half calf over marbled boards, red morocco label on upper cover, gilt title on spine; small oil spot on title page, fine.
A manuscript index, intended to accompany images collected into a "mythological box" which was then sent to friends in Europe for their education and entertainment. The introductory apology states: "It was thought that without some explanation, the figures of the Hindoo deities would afford little either amusement or information." He goes on to explain why one should take interest in "monstrous fiction," saying that to millions of people the myths are true, and that sympathy for this mindset would better help the missionary do his work. Following this are descriptions of 48 images distributed across 12 boards, which comprise the contents of the said box. The descriptions are quite thorough, and cover the general concept of the image (usually a god), its history or origin, practices associated with them and so on. The entry on Kallee (Kali), for example, describes her relationship with other gods, her domains of influence, some important stories involving her, who worships her and how, and even includes a hymn that Lacey claims is sung by human sacrifices "just before they are murdered." Other entries are similarly negative, and some make mention of local events.
Charles Lacey spent the majority of his life doing missionary work in Orissa (Odisha). He arrived in India at the age of 24, and passed away of illness at the age of 54. During his time in Orissa he became notably fluent in the local language. His obituary stated that "few missionaries ever acquire so thorough a mastery of the tones and idioms of a foreign tongue as he did," and his knowledge of Hindu mythology was noted as "very extensive and accurate." As part of his missionary duties Lacey translated and published a variety of material for the local missionary press, but as far as we know this text was never printed.
Another copy of this index appeared at auction in 2010, accompanied by a collection of watercolor illustrations. It incorrectly states that our copy is part of a printed edition. The box itself appears to have disappeared. Our copy has no illustrations, just the holograph manuscript by itself. It also contains a few corrections in a less stable hand on the table of contents, and a footnote added in that same hand that refers to an incident in 1851, initialed by Lacey. As Lacey died in 1853, our assumption is that this is Lacey's personal copy, to be kept by him after the box and its index were sent to his friends in Europe.
See The General Baptist Repository, and Missionary Observer, 1852, p. 302 for Lacey's obituary.
103. The Chinese as they are; their moral and social character, manners, customs, language: with remarks on their arts and sciences, medical skill, the extent of missionary enterprise, etc. By G. Tradescent naturalist in Beechy's expedition, late resident at Canton, author of "The voyage of the Himmaleh," etc. Containing also, illustrative and corroborative notes, additional chapters on the ancient and modern history, ancient and modern intercourse, population, government, civilization, education, literature, etc. of the Chinese, compiled from authentic sources by E. G. Squier. Albany: published by George Jones, Museum Building. Burgess and Stringer, and M.Y. Beach, New York. Redding and Co. Boston: G.B. Zeiber [i.e. Zieber], Philadelphia. Wm. Taylor, Baltimore, 1843.
$325
8vo, pp. iv, 116; original printed green wrappers; neatly rebacked; small piece missing from the front of the front wrapper, else very good. Printed by Joel Munsell, Albany.
This is the first separate publication by Squire who became a prominent archaeologist and a prolific author.
Lust, citing the London edition of the same year, which was published without the Squire contribution: "Good deal of observation, firm believer in the superiority of "Graeco-Hebraic" civilization, for a free opium market."
Lust 48; Cordier, Sinica, 77.
104. Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangères par quelques missionaires de la Compagnie de Jésus. XI recueil. Paris: Nicholas Le Clerc, 1715.
$750
12mo, pp. [24], 428, [8]; folding map of the Philippines; contemporary full calf, maroon morocco label on gilt-decorated spine; a bit worn, joints with cracks starting at the extremities; all else very good.
Engraved bookplate of Nicholas Roosevelt. This is the 11th volume in a series that ran from 1703 to 1776 which reflected "the continued interest in France in the progress of the Jesuit missions in various parts of the world. The termination of the series reflects the suppression of the Society of Jesus by papal decree" (James Ford Bell Catalogue, L-368).
Includes Lettre du P. Bouchet... A monsieur Cochet de Saint-Vallier...; Relation en forme de journal, de la découverte des isles de Palaos, ou Nouvelles Philippines; Lettre du P. Taillandier... Au P. Willard... A Pondichery ce 20. février 1711; Lettre du P. d'Entrecolles... Au Pere procureur des missions de la Chine & des Indes. A Jao-Tchéou ce 27. août 1712; Lettre du P. Jacquemin... Au Pere procureur des missions des Indes & de la Chine. De l'isle de Tsong-Ming dans la province de Nanking le I. septemb. 1712; Lettre du P. Gabriel Marest... Au Pere Germon... Aux Cascaskias, village illinois, autrement dit de l'immaculée conception de la sainte Vierge, le 9. novembre 1712; and, Lettre du Pere Antoine Sepp... Au Pere Guillaume Stinglhaim.
Howes L-299 (whole series).
105. The life and work of the Rev. E. J. Peck among the Eskimos. New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1904..
$75
First American edition, 12mo, pp. xvi, 349, [1]; frontispiece portrait, plates; original blue cloth gilt; binding a bit rubbed at edges, hinges starting, previous owner's name stamped in ink on front free endpaper, light foxing; overall a good, sound copy.
"Edmund James Peck (1850-1924), known in Inuktitut as Uqammaq (one who talks well), was an Anglican missionary in the Canadian North on the Quebec coast of Hudson Bay and on Baffin Island. He founded the first permanent mission on Baffin Island, Nunavut. He developed Inuktitut syllabics, derived from the Cree syllabary and the first substantial English-Inuktitut dictionary" (Wikipedia).
106. Formatio cleri in Mongolia. Peking: Ex Typographia Lazaristarum, 1940.
$200
8vo, pp. [4], 154, [2]; text in Latin; dozens of photoreproductive illustrations, portrait plate of Pope Pius XII, red library buckram, color illustration inlaid on upper board, manuscript title in gilt on cover and spine; ex- Maryknoll library and Library of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, with bottom three inches of spine blacked out, bookplates and pocket residue on endpapers, some stamping; gift inscription to "Father Ahern from Bernard O'Neill."
A history of the Catholic mission in Mongolia, with many illustrations of the grounds and surrounding area.
107. [Liturgy in Mi'kmaq.] L. D. M. F. Sapeoig oigatigen tan tetli gomgoetjoigasigel. Alasotmaganel, ginamatineoel ag getapegiemgeoel ... Manual of prayers, instructions, psalms & hymns in Micmac ideograms ... new edition. Ristigouche, P. Q.: The Micmac Messenger, 1921.
$350
8vo, pp. [4], xii, [5]-456; red buckram with gilt title on spine, red stained edges; very good. Liturgy in Mi'kmaq.
Mi'kmaq ideograms are the oldest known native writing north of Mexico, and were adapted for the use of Catholic missionary work in the 17th century. The first attempt at printing a book of religious instruction in Micmac hieroglyphs was fraught with difficulty, took almost ten years to produce, and a large number of the resulting books were lost at sea. This is the later state of the second edition, with prefaces in French, Mi'kmaq and English inserted into the preliminaries.
108. American missionaries in China. Papers from Harvard seminars. Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1966.
$75
4to, pp. [6], 310; original blue printed wrappers; very good.
Compilation of seven papers on the subject, divided into three sub-sections, "The Missionary and his Contribution to China;" "The Missionary and Chinese Nationalism;" and "The Missionary and China's Rural Problems."
109. An historical sketch of the Portuguese settlements in China and of the Roman Catholic Church and mission in China ... A supplementary chapter, description of the city of Canton. [Hong Kong]: Viking Hong Kong Publications, 1992.
$75
First edition thus, first published in book form in Boston, 1836; 8vo, pp. [16], 280; color frontispiece portrait, 3 folding maps; fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
110. The China mission year book 1919. Taipei: Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company, 1973.
$75
Facsimile edition, 8vo, pp. xii, 398, [2]; full green cloth, gilt title on spine; light soiling to boards, text clean and sound, very good.
A collection of reports on the state of the country, covering economics, religion (missionary work and local religious issues), education, public health, and literature. Also includes a collection of obituaries for westerners.
111. Five years in unknown jungles for God and empire. Being an account of the founding of the Lakher Pioneer Mission, its work amongst (with manners, customs, religious rites and ceremonies of) a wild headhunting race of savage hillsmen in further India, previously unknown to the civilized world.. London: Lather Pioneer Mission, n.d., [ca. 1912].
$225
Second edition, small 8vo, pp. xii, 274, [1]; frontispiece portrait, map, and 14 plates showing 29 photographic illustrations; very good, sound copy in original green cloth lettered in gilt on upper cover and spine.
Pioneer missionary among the Lakhers, a tribe of eastern-most India south of Assam, this text deals with the Lather people from Mizoram and the role of the Lather Pioneer Mission in their development.
112. James Gilmour of Mongolia. His diaries, letters, and reports. New York & Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Co., [1898].
$50
First edition, 8vo, pp. 336; frontispiece portrait, plates, maps; original green cloth, spine gilt-lettered; light general wear to cloth, spine edges rubbed, light periodic foxing, mainly to first and last few leaves and page edges.
"The object of the volume is to enable the reader to appreciate in some degree the life-work and the character of one of the greatest missionaries of the nineteenth century."
113. Report of a mission to Sikkim and the Tibetan frontier. Kathmandu: Ratna Pustak Bhandar, 1977.
$40
Reprint of the 1884 edition, thin 8vo, pp. [8], ii, 105; pictorial endpapers, map and 22 illustrations from photographs on plates, all after the original edition; a very good copy in a worn jacket with a piece missing at the lower outer corner of the front panel.
Issued as vol. 16 in the publisher's Bibliotheca Himalayica series.
114. A Chinese-English dictionary: Hakka dialect ... revised and rearranged with many additional terms and phrases by M. C. Mackenzie. Taipei: Southern Materials Center, Inc., 1982.
$65
8vo, pp. [10], 1142, [2]; lexicon in double column; original gilt-stamped red cloth; near fine throughout.
A reprint of the second revised edition of 1926 by the Presbyterian Mission Press.
115. [Chinese.] 客英词典 = A Chinese-English dictionary: Hakka-Dialect as spoken in Kwang-Tung Province ... Revised and rearranged with many addition terms and phrases by M. C. Mackenzie, E. P. Mission, Wu-king-fu. Taipei: SMC Publishing, [2007].
$125
Reprint of the second edition (first published at the Presbyterian Press in Shanghai, 1926); 8vo, pp. [10], 1142; fine in original blue cloth stamped in gilt on upper cover and spine.
116. Irish Maori girls' help association [together with:] The Maoris. [N.p. Dublin?]: [n.d.] (early 1900s) .
$125
Broadsheet, printed on both sides, 7 1/4" x 4 1/2"; edges lightly creased, otherwise fine.
A collection card for the Irish Maori Girls' Help Association, listing the honorary presidents (Countess' and Lady Fulton) and reading: "This Society has been founded to provide Scholarships for the Maori Girls' School, Auckland. Subscriptions are invited, and may be sent to The Secretary and Treasurer, Miss Lily Ryder, 13 Carlisle Terrace, Donnybrook, Co. Dublin. Membership, 2/6 per year."
Together with: a bifolium, approx. 5 1/4" x 4", The Maoris. Some annotations on last page, else fine. A detailed imploration to establish finances for schools to take in Maori women and children, via the Victoria Association: "They are sadly decreasing in numbers, and unless energetic and unselfish measures are taken by us, who know and love them, and others to whom we appeal for help, doubtless in a few years that splendid people New Zealand's greatest treasure, will become as extinct as the N.Z. Moa....A great work is being done amongst them by the Victory Association for befriending Maori women and children. I hope to start a branch of that work in Ireland. The Victoria school takes Maori girls from a very early age, and gives them a thorough, sensible and domestic education. The girls are educated up to the sixth standard, and learn cooking, laundry work, gardening and singing, etc. They also have lessons in first aid, and are taught to nurse the sick...All these girls are overshepherded by white ladies, and this is a most important feature of the work. The Association is in touch with every girl who has been in the school. There are 45, 970 Maoris in the North Island, but our school has only room for forty girls. We want help." signed in type, "Rona."
117. The analytical reader: a short method for learning to read and write Chinese. Shanghai: printed at the American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1897.
$325
First edition, 8vo, pp. [6], 204; contemporary quarter maroon morocco, gilt-lettered spine; scuffed and rubbed, upper joint starting, boards moderately scraped; textblock clean, and the binding remains sound. Early ownership signature of G. Caulton.
Wikipedia notes that Martin was an American Presbyterian missionary to China and translator, famous for having translated a number of important Western treatises into Chinese. "From 1863 till 1868, he worked at Beijing, often as official interpreter for the American Minister to China, Anson Burlingame. He was reputed to be the first foreigner to make the journey from Beijing to Shanghai on the Grand Canal of China, and described the trip in the Journal of the Asiatic Society (1866). In 1869, Martin became president of the Tongwenguan in Beijing until 1895, and a professor of international law. He acted as an adviser of Chinese officials on questions of international law when disputes arose with European powers, notably during the conflict with France in 1884–1885."
118. Four years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island. An account of their forests, rivers, coasts, gold fields, and resources for colonisation. London: John Murray, 1862.
$375
First edition, 8vo, pp. [iii]-xi, [1], 468; wood-engraved frontispiece and vignette title page, 17 wood-engraved plates and a folding map; original brown cloth, spine ends chipped, hinges cracked; ex-Northern Pacific Railway Co. with small rubberstamp on the flyleaf and a small accession label at the base of the spine, but no other markings; good copy.
Field 1047: "Several engravings illustrative of aboriginal life and two chapters devoted to that subject, form a sufficient claim of this volume to place in a collection of works relating to Indian history."
TPL 4076: "This work is based on his trips along the coast and inland; it includes also extracts from the journals and letters to the Church Missionary Society by William Duncan, a Church of England missionary stationed at Fort Simpson and elsewhere."
Lowther, Bibliography of British Columbia, 178.
119. [McGuffey, William Holmes.] [Laguna Indian translation of McGufeyf's [sic] New First Eclectic Reader. Translated and printed by John Menaul]. Laguna, New Mexico: [Laguna Mission Press], 1882.
$2,000
Small 4to, approx. 7¼" x 4¾", pp. [6]-12, [2 blank], 13-28, [2 blank], 29-44, [2 blank], 45-60, [2 blank], 61-76, [2 blank], 77-82 [i.e. 84], [1 blank]; initial gathering (pp. [4], iv) lacking and replaced with laid in facsimile gathering; consisting of Directions to the Book Binder, title page, introduction, and the full text of McGuffey's Reader in Laguna translation; later half blue morocco, over marbled boards, gilt title direct on spine, t.e.g., uncut; light scuffing to covers, corners bumped, very good. An Ayer Linguistics duplicate, with an Newberry library bookplate and label on pastedowns.
McGuffey's "Reader" was used in the instruction of Indian children of Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico, by Rev. John Menaul, a Presbyterian missionary in that village for many years, commencing 1876. He obtained some copies of the "Reader" and interleaved them with his translation into Keres (the language of Laguna) using his own little printing press. Menaul was New Mexico's premier publisher of bilingual works. He got his first taste of printing in Africa and put his experience to use in New Mexico beginning in1877. Following four years of work with Navajos at Fort Defiance, Arizona, he assumed a post at Laguna Pueblo, fifty miles west of Albuquerque. There he launched what has since become known as the Laguna Mission Press.
Recognizing that a key element of bringing Christianity to the Pueblo people was a common language, Menaul produced educational material and religious tracts in English and Keres, the Laguna tongue. After leaving Laguna Pueblo in 1889, he settled in Albuquerque and continued to print Spanish language religious works" (from Lasting Impressions: The Private Presses of New Mexico, 2005). "This small book is very rare indeed" -- F.W. Hodge.
Not in Graff; not in Streeter (who had at least one other Laguna Mission imprint). OCLC locates the SMU, Arizona, Georgetown, Lafayette, and Chicago History Museum copies only.
120. The pioneer printing press on the Island of Madagascar. Johannesburg, South Africa: privately printed, 1933.
$50
Edition limited to 200 copies, 8vo, pp. 8; original printed self-wrappers; fine.
The first printing press on Madagascar was set up at Antananarivo, the capital of the island, to assist pioneer missionaries in 1826.
121. The life of Confucius. Reproduced from a book entitled Sheng Ji Tu, being rubbings from the stone "Tablets of the Holy Shrine". Shanghai: Kwang Hsueh Publishing House, Oxford University Press, n.d., [ca. 1933].
$750
Oblong 8vo, pp. [116]; illustrated throughout with captions in Chinese and English; original limp red cloth, stab-bound, gilt-stamped on the upper cover; some loss to the fore-corner of the upper cover, but otherwise very good, sound, and clean. The last leaf provides a list of the three dozen or so books on Confucius held in the library of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
For the first time the book is here attributed to Margaret Verne McNeely (1885-1975), a missionary of The Presbyterian Church in Canada to China. Three small notes written (ostensibly) to Chester Nimitz, the US Fleet Admiral in the Pacific by Mrs. William A. Main, are laid in and attest to the authorship:
"This conglomeration may be of interest - It is as modern as Chinese jazz, and mixes old and new in a fairly true-to-life fashion ... This book was compiled by Miss McNeely of the Kwang Hsueh Press. It is fully authentic. She refuses to let her name appear because of her extreme modesty. However, I 'tell on her' sometimes!" These two notes are almost certainly written by Mrs. William A. Main, whose calling card is also laid in, with the note: "Bon Voyage and all good wishes to Mrs. Nimitz, and the Misses Katherine and Nancy, with special love to wee Mary." Mary (b. 1931), Katherine and Nancy were the daughters of Chester Nimitz who at the time was commander of the Asiatic Fleet.
Also laid in is a lengthy 4-page autograph letter signed to Mrs. Nimitz from John Goudy, the Resident Bishop at the Foochow Area Methodist Episcopal Church, dated March 11, 1937, stating that he and Mrs. Goudy are "pleased at your efforts to keep in touch with us ... We have been traveling almost continuously since we saw you at Unyen ... During 1935 we went to Szechwan three times. After that we bought a round-the-world ticket in Shanghai, sailing Feb. 15 and returning Sept. 11 ... we were in American about three months..." Goudy goes on to say he was lecturing and going to conferences, and was able to finally get some vacation when they went to Scotland for three-and-a-half weeks, followed by 12 days in London. "Almost as soon as we returned to Foochow we began our travels again and that meant another trip into West China. The water of the Yangtze is lower than it has been for over a generation. There are no British ships running above Ichang, and only one, once a week, above Hankow ... On the way down we found it necessary to take the plane from Chungking to Hangkow. On this trip from Foochow to Chengku we did 2500 miles by steamer, 300 miles by automobile, and 1300 miles by plane ... Now we are in Shanghai for a few weeks while I am at work preparing for a conference which opens in Nangking March 24..."
The Mrs. Nimitz is the wife of Chester Nimitz, Catherine Vance Freeman Nimitz. Nimitz at the time was a Fleet Admiral in the U.S. Navy, who in 1933 became commander of the Asiatic Fleet.
As for Margaret Verne McNeely, the compiler of this book, "from 1909 to 1914, supported by the Women’s Missionary Society, Verne assisted Rev. Donald MacGillivray of the North Honan Mission with compiling and editing the China Mission Year Book published by the Christian Literature Society. From 1914 to 1917, Verne worked with the China Continuation Committee which developed into the National Christian Council of China. In 1917 Verne accepted an invitation to work in a bookstore in Shanghai that specialized in the sale of English and Chinese books. This bookstore eventually became the Kwang Hsueh Publishing House which had, by 1943, about one-third of its business in Chinese textbooks sponsored by the Nurses’ Association of China. In 1923 Verne became the manager of the bookstore until the onset of the Second World War during which she spent two and a half years in a Japanese interment centre" (carletonplacelocalhistory.com).
OCLC locates 7 copies, without any reference to Miss Neely: Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Boston Theological, Toronto, University of London, and one in Germany.
122. China; its state and prospects, with especial reference to the spread of the Gospel; containing allusions to the antiquity, extent, population, civilization, literature, and religion of the Chinese. New York: Crocker & Brewster, 1838.
$750
First American edition, small 8vo, pp. xv, [1], [13]-472; folding frontispiece map, 6 wood-engravings by G. Baxter on 3 plates; a fine, bright copy in original brown cloth, gilt-lettered spine.
Walter Henry Medhurst (1796-1857) was an English missionary who served an apprenticeship in the printing trade before joining the Missionary Society. He was sent to Malacca in 1817 where he spent almost 20 years doing Protestant missionary work in what is now Indonesia. It was in Batavia (Jakarta) that he printed on his lithographic press the first English-Japanese dictionary in 1830. After the Opium War he moved to Shanghai in order to assist in a translation of the New Testament into Chinese, and remained in China until his return to England in 1856.
Medhurst's long career in the Far East made him familiar not only with Malay and Chinese, but also with Japanese, and he is not only one of the most reliable, but also one of the most informed of the Western sinologists. He also went on to publish a Chinese dictionary and conversation book.
123. [Mi'kmaq.] Papeoiteoei Maoi Gtapegiagan. Oelimgosit gotjino papeoit. Hymne au pape, Micmac. New York: J. Fischer & Bro, [1908].
$45
Broadsheet, title on recto, musical notation on verso; lyrics in Micmac; paper evenly toned, near fine.
Pacifique de Valigny, née Henri-Joseph-Louis Buisson, was a Capucin French missionary who wrote and published a number of religious materials for the benefit of the Mi'kmaq and Gaspe people.
124. [Mi'kmaq.] Union de Prieres etabile en la mission de Ste-Anne de Ristigouche [cover title]. [Rimouski, Quebec: Imprimerie Generale S. Vachon, 1914].
$35
Approx. 4.74 x 3.25 inch pamphlet; pp. 4, [4]; text in French, explaining the intended use of the funds being raised by the church and the benefits to donation, along with blank charts tracking tithes from 1914 to 1947. Staple-bound in original cream paper wrappers.
125. [Missionaries - Erie Canal.] Five years on the Erie Canal: an account of some of the most striking scenes and incidents during five years' labor on the Erie Canal, and other inland waters. Utica: Bennett, Backus, & Hawley, 1845.
$150
18mo, pp. [7]-150; original blind-stamped brown cloth with gilt title on upper cover, corners and spine rubbed, light dampstain on top edge stopping before the text, light spotting, good.
An account of missionary work. Opinions given on Catholics, Blacklegs, infidels generally, and the various sailors and passengers preached to and or converted.
126. [Missionary Atlas.] World missionary atlas. Containing a directory of missionary societies, classified summaries of statistics, maps showing the location of mission stations throughout the world, a descriptive account of the principal mission lands, and comprehensive indices ... Maps by John Bartholomew. New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1925.
$100
Folio, pp. [2], 251, [1]; double-page colored frontispiece map, 29 double-page colored plates of maps; ex-James J. Hill Library, St. Paul, with the usual treatments; extremities rubbed, else a very good, sound copy in original maroon cloth stamped in gilt on upper cover and spine.
127. [Missions - China.] Nouvelles des missions orientales, reçues au Séminaire des missions étrangères à Paris, en 1782, 1791, 1792. Pouvant servir de suite aux Lettres édifiantes des missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jesus. Liége: De l'Imprimerie de F. Lemarié, 1794.
$500
First edition, 12mo, pp. 190, [2]; uncut; original drab wrappers; edges curled, wrappers dusty, several small splits but overall good and sound, or better. Contained in a new cloth clamshell box, printed paper label on spine.
A collection of Jesuit letters pertaining to China. "Contains a letter by Francois Pottier, dated 1782; two letters by Jean Dufresne dated 5 Oct. 1792 and 29 Sept. 1792; a letter by M. Broisserand, dated 20 Fevrier, 1792; a 'Rélation de la Mission du Su-Tchoan, province de Chine, année 1791, rédigée par Mgr. [Jean Didier] de St.-Martin,' dated 30 September 1791 (pp. 49-92); and a 'Rélation de la Mission du St.-Tchoan [...], année 1792, rédigée par Mgr. [Jean Didier] de St.-Martin' (pp. 128-70)."
Löwendahl, 684.
128. Twenty years in Assam or leaves from my journal. Nowgong, Assam, India: 1901.
$1,500
First edition (500 printed), small 8vo, pp. [2], xiv, 222;
together with: Further leaves from Assam. A continuation of my Journal "Twenty Years in Assam." Howgong, Assam, 1907, first edition (500 printed), small 8vo, pp. [2], xi, [1], 191; this copy with a presentation from Mrs. Moore (signed J. T. M.) given as a birthday present to her father E. C. Traver. The book is dedicated to Clara M. Traver, her mother;
together with: Autumn leaves from Assam. A Continuation of My Journal… Edited and published by Mrs. P. H. Moore. Nowgong, 1910, first edition (500 printed), small 8vo, pp. [2], x, 96;
together with: Stray leaves from Assam. A continuation of my Journal "Twenty Years in Assam," "Further leaves from Assam," and "Autumn Leaves from Assam," Edited and published by Mrs. P. H. Moore. Rochester, N.Y., 1916. First edition, 500 copies;
Together, 4 volumes, uniformly bound in original brown cloth, gilt-lettered spines, all but the last printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta. Binding colors vary slightly, but in all, a near fine, sound set.
Complete set of the accounts of the intrepid American missionary who first traveled to Assam in 1879.
129. [Mormons.] Letters exhibiting the most prominent doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in reply to the Rev. William Crowell ... Fourth edition. Liverpool & London: S. W. Richards, 1852.
$3,500
Small 8vo, pp. [iii]-viii, 244; 19th century black diced russia, lettered in gilt on spine; upper joint partially cracked and tender; bookplate of James J. Hill, accession numbers of J. J. Hill Library on upper cover and corresponding perforated stamp in the bottom margin of the title page touching imprint, title page neatly reinserted; a good copy.
This copy inscribed on the flyleaf: "Mons. Jules Remy, presented by Governor Brigham Young, President of the Mormon Church. Great Salt Lake City, September 30th, 1855."
Jules Rémy (1825-1893) was a French naturalist and traveler, and the author, with Julius Brentley, of A journey to Great-Salt-Lake City … with a sketch of the history, religion, and customs of the Mormons, and an introduction of the religious movement in the United States (London, 1860). See Wagner-Camp (Becker), 364:2: "Remy and … Brenchley traveled from San Francisco to Salt Lake City in the summer of 1855. After a month's stay they left for Los Angeles, which they reached on November 29, and then returned to San Francisco … The Frenchmen were fascinated by the Mormons, and much of this book is devoted to the new American religion."
Spencer, a well-educated Baptist minister who converted to Mormonism in 1841, corresponded with former colleague Reverend William Crowell and those letters form the basis of the above work. Spencer went on to head the University of Nauvoo, served as president of the British Mission, and was the first chancellor of the University of Deseret.
Flake 8327; Crawley 736; Sabin 89370.
130. The cerographic missionary atlas [wrapper title]. [New York]: Sidney E. Morse & Co., gratuitously and exclusively for the subscribers to the New York Observer, [1848].
$1,250
Large, oblong 4to, 18 leaves, each with a full-page map; several bound in upside down, as issued; original printed brown wrappers; a few chips around the edges and mild dampstains; all else very good.
Offered as a supplement to the New York Observer, a Presbyterian newspaper which ran from 1829 to 1912. It includes maps of both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, South Africa, West Africa (nos. I and II), Greenland and Labrador, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Country of the Nestorians (i.e. southern Iraq), Northern India, Western India, Southern India (including Ceylon), Bengal, Siam (including Burma), China, Indian Territory (showing Minnesota Territory, Texas and east from Lake Superior and the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains in the west, noting Indian tribes, forts and settlements) plus a map of the Hawaiian Islands (sometimes missing).
"The maps show ... missionary settlements throughout America and the world" (Rumsey).
Cerography or wax engraving was an invention by Sidney Morse and Henry A. Munsen in 1834, specifically for the engraving of maps.
Phillips 182; Rumsey 4685.001.
131. The Chinese Rites controversy. Its history and meaning. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1994.
$150
First edition, 8vo, pp. x, 356, [26] ads; fine copy in original green cloth printed in white. Without a dust jacket, as issued. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series XXXIII.
The Chinese Rites controversy "was a dispute among Roman Catholic missionaries over the religiosity of Confucianism and Chinese rituals during the 17th and 18th centuries. The debate discussed whether Chinese ritual practices of honoring family ancestors and other formal Confucian and Chinese imperial rites qualified as religious rites and were thus incompatible with Catholic belief. The Jesuits argued that these Chinese rites were secular rituals that were compatible with Christianity, within certain limits, and should thus be tolerated. The Dominicans and Franciscans, however, disagreed and reported the issue to Rome" (Wikipedia).
132. Gilmour of the Mongols. London: Hodder & Stoughton, n.d., [ca, 1924].
$60
8vo, pp. xi [i.e. ix], [1], 206; frontispiece portrait, 1 plate, 2 maps; original blue cloth a little faded on covers, preserving the original printed dust-jacket which is variously creased and chipped, with slight loss at the bottom of the spine, and with tape reinforcement on the verso.
Issued in the publisher's Master Missionary Series. James Gilmour worked tirelessly in the name of God on the Great Plain and perimeter of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.
133. A crusader in Kashmir, being the life of Dr. Arthur Neve, with an account of the medical missionary work of two brothers & its later developments down to the present day. London: Seeley, Service & Co. Limited, 1928.
$35
First edition, 8vo, pp. 218, [6] ads; frontispiece and 8 illustrations on 7 plates; original yellow cloth stamped in black on upper cover and spine; spine a little soiled, tiny crack at the top of the spine, fore-edge a little spotted; all else very good and sound. Ownership signature of L. T. Linley on the front pastedown.
134. [Office Services in Mi'kmaq.] Agantieoimgeoel. Offices du dimanche. Etrait du Paroissien Micmac. Ste Anne de Restigouche: [n.p.], 1917.
$75
32mo, pp. [2] 348; text in Micmac; black buckram with red stained edges, near fine.
Office Services in Micmac. Mi'kmaq ideograms are the oldest known native writing north of Mexico, and were adapted for the use of Catholic missionary work in the 17th century. The first attempt at printing a book of religious instruction in Micmac hieroglyphs was fraught with difficulty, took almost ten years to produce, and a large number of the resulting books were lost at sea.
Pacifique de Valigny, née Henri-Joseph-Louis Buisson, was a Capucin French missionary who wrote and published a number of religious materials for the benefit of the Mi'kmaq and Gaspe people.
135. An address on the nature and cultivation of a missionary spirit, delivered before the Society of Inquiry on Missions of Miami University, Sunday evening, February 26th, 1837. Published at the request of the students. Oxford, OH: R. H. Bishop, 1837.
$45
8vo, pp. 22; original paper wrappers (soiled), some foxing, otherwise very good.
136. [Ordos.] Dictionnaire Ordos. Peking [i.e. Beijing]: Catholic University, 1941-44.
$1,250
First edition, 3 volumes, large 4to, pp. xii, [2], 390; [8], 391-767, [1]; [6], [769]-950, [2]; original printed wrappers; wrappers with a few small chips at extremities; otherwise about fine throughout.
The dialect of Ordos is spoken on a desert plateau in the southern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China. Antoine Mostaert (1881-1971) was a Belgian Roman Catholic missionary in China. "He served as a missionary in the town of Boro Balγasu in the southern Ordos region from 1906-1925. His early work concentrated on Ordos Mongolian, with studies of phonology and the compilation of a dictionary" (Wikipedia).
Issued as Monograph 5 in the publisher's Monumenta Serica series.
137. [Ordos.] Texte oraux ordos. Peip'ing [i.e. Beijing]: cura Universitatis catholicae Pekini edita; en vente aux Éditions H. Vetch, Peip'ing; en vente aux Éditions H. Vetch, 1937.
$850
First edition, large 4to, pp. lxx, 768; original printed wrappers bound in handsome recent maroon cloth, new printed paper label on spine; wrapper with a few small chips at extremities; otherwise about fine throughout.
Antoine Mostaert (1881-1971) was a Belgian Roman Catholic missionary in China. "He served as a missionary in the town of Boro Balγasu in the southern Ordos region from 1906-1925. His early work concentrated on Ordos Mongolian, with studies of phonology and the compilation of a dictionary" (Wikipedia).
The dialect of Ordos, a desert plateau in the southern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China. Containing "Contes, légendes, anecdotes -- Chansons -- Énigmes, problèmes -- Jeux d'enfants -- Formules de benédictions, formules de Dalalga, formules de conjuration, formules de serment imprécatoire, oraisons jaculatoires -- Railleries, malédictions, injures -- Sentences, dictons, proverbes, manières de parler diverses." [Tales, legends, anecdotes -- Songs -- Riddles, problems -- Children's games -- Blessing formulas, Dalalga formulas, conjuration formulas, imprecatory oath formulas, ejaculatory prayers -- Taunts, curses, insults -- Sentences, sayings, proverbs, various ways of speaking.]
138. The reminiscences of a Texas missionary. San Antonio: Press of Johnson Bros. Printing Co., 1899.
$75
First edition, 8vo, pp. [3]-227, v (index), [6] ads; portrait frontispiece; original red cloth, light stains on covers, not affecting text block, spine slightly sunned; very good. Gift inscription "To Brother Justinian from Mrs. L. B. Smith, Austin, Texas, Dec. 27, '99." Interesting scenes and events from across the state. Howes P-67.
139. Journal of an exploring tour beyond the Rocky Mountains, under the direction of the A.B.C.F.M. in the years 1835, '36, and '37; containing a description of the geography, geology, climate, productions... and the numbers, manners, and customs of the natives: with a map of Oregon Territory. Ithaca, N.Y.: Mack, Andrus, & Woodruff [etc.], 1842.
$300
Third edition (first published 1838), 8vo, pp. 408; folding frontispiece map of the Oregon Territory dated 1838, plus 1 engraved plate; in a plain, contemporary full leather binding; moderate wear, waterstains to the first handful of pages, a good and sound copy.
Howes P-89: The map is "earliest showing accurately the Oregon interior … Parker accompanied a fur-trading party, in 1835, from Council Bluffs to Walla Walla."
Forbes 1120: "After arriving at the Columbia River and exploring Oregon and Washington, Parker joined the barque Columbia headed for the Hawaiian Islands in June 1836 … Parker was invited to stay at the Binghams. He describes Honolulu at some length … visited Waikiki … later went to Ewa, Wialua, and Kaneohe, and has brief remarks on resident missionaries at each station…"
140. The church in Madras being the history of the ecclesiastical and missionary action of the East India Company ... in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. London: John Murray, 1904-12-22.
$350
First edition, Murray issue; 2 volumes, 8vo, 112 illustrations, largely from photographs, on 109 plates plus 5 diagrams in the text; errata leaf in volume 2, manuscript errata tipped into volume III; very good in original red cloth.
The book was originally published by Smith Elder, but it was assumed by Murray in 1912.
141. Perrins' English-Zulu dictionary. New and revised edition. Natal: F. Davis & Sons, 1915.
$75
16mo (5½" x 4¼"), pp. 322; original terracotta cloth, gilt-stamped spine; very good, sound and clean.
"James Perrin, lexicographer, Zulu linguist and naturalist, worked with the American missionary Josiah Tyler among the Zulus at Esidumbeni in the colony of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) from 1850. Under the supervision of his friend, bishop J.W. Colenso, he compiled the first Zulu-English dictionary on the basis of the Zulu vocabularies drawn up by various missionaries (London, 1855, 166 pp). It was, however, limited in scope. That same year he also published an English-Zulu dictionary (Pietermaritzburg, 1855, 225 pp), which was of a much higher standard. Later editions of the latter, revised by others, appeared from 1865 to 1912. Perrin was originally a member of the Anglican Church, but following an ecclesiastical quarrel with bishop Colenso he became a Baptist" (s2a2.org).
Zaunmuller col. 409 notes a 1917 edition only.
142. Traditions indiennes du Canada Nord-Ouest. Paris: Maisonneuve frères et Ch. Leclerc, 1886.
$500
16mo, pp. [10], xvii, [1], 521, [7]; original red cloth stamped in black and gilt; half-title toned, spine ends slightly chipped; all else very good and sound. An Ayer Linguistic duplicate with an Ayer bookplate and a Newberry release stamp. Issued as volume XXIII in the publisher's "Les Littératures Populaires de Toutes les Nations" series.
This copy inscribed "A Monsieur J. Pilling homage de l'editeur, Ch. Leclerc."
This free translation of Athapaskan tales, with a few Cree, Blackfoot, and Eskimo tales, was also published in French and Native languages in parallel columns, as Traditions indiennes du Canada nord-ouest: textes originaux & traduction littérale, Alençon, France: E. Renaut-De Broise, 1888. L’Abbeé Petitot was a missionary as early as 1862 along the Mackenzie River and in the Great Bear and Great Slave lakes region.
Lande 1391.
143. Lessons in the Shanghai dialect. Shanghai: printed at the American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1907.
$425
First edition, 8vo, pp. [2], vii, [1], 99, [1]; contemporary and likely original quarter blue calf, gilt-lettered spine; hinges cracked, light scuffing and rubbing; a good, sound, and clean copy. Six leaves of student manuscript notes laid in.
OCLC locates just 2 copies in the US: Minnesota and Univ. of Puget Sound; plus one in Taiwan and another in Germany.
144. [Prayers & Hymns, in Inuit.] Catholic prayers & hymns in Innuit. [Kosoreffski, Alaska]: Holy Cross [Mission], Oct., 1899.
$150
8vo, pp. 21; orig. blue cloth lettered in black on upper cover; text block becoming loose from binding, pencil scribbles on front free endpaper and pastedown; all else very good. Headline reads: A.M.D.G. The third leaf (pp. 5-6) has been excised.
145. [Prayers in Illinois.] Facsimile of Pere Marquette's Illinois prayer book. It's history by the owner. Quebec: Quebec Literary and Historical Society, 1908.
$150
Edition limited to 300 copies (this, no. 166); oblong 8vo, pp. 12, [4], 66 leaves with facsimile reproductions of the manuscript prayer book on rectos only; leather backed red cloth boards; edges stained red; spine worn and chipped, upper joint split; textblock clean and bright.
The introduction by J. L. Hubert Neilson traces the prayer book's provenance and concludes that it was likely written by Pere Claude Allouez for the benefit of Pere Marquette as he set off to preach among the Illinois. Printed "in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of Quebec, July, 1608."
146. Missionary intelligence; being a part of the report of the standing committee of missions, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, for 1811. Philadelphia: printed by Thomas and William Bradford, no. 2, South Front Street, 1811.
$100
8vo, pp. 52; partially unopened; original drab paper wrappers; dampstain in the top margin of the first 16 pages; otherwise very good.
Includes extracts from journals and letters of perhaps a dozen missionaries, reporting in from Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and including one to the Wyandots around the shores of Lake Ontario. Similar titles were issued in 1812 and 1813.
American Imprints 23735; Sabin 65183.
147. Reminiscences, memoirs and lectures. St. Paul: Brown, Treacy & Co., 1890.
$45
First edition, 8vo, pp. x, 223, [1]; frontispiece portrait, 2 illustrations; top of spine chipped, hinges cracked; a good copy in original maroon cloth stamped in gilt on spine.
Augustin Ravoux (1815-1906) was a French Jesuit priest and missionary who served in the area preceding the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, in Minnesota. "Ravoux's favorable reputation among the Dakota, recommended him to baptize the Dakota involved in the Dakota War of 1862." Of the thirty-eight that were to be hanged on December 26, 1862, "Ravoux personally baptized 33. When Chief Shakopee and Medicine Bottle were captured in Manitoba, Ravoux baptized them and administered their Last Rites, accompanying them up until their final moments on November 11, 1865."
Graff 3425; Howes R75.
148. The China Christian year book 1926. Shanghai: Christian Literature Society, 1926.
$200
8vo, pp. xiv, [1], 549, [1]; full blue cloth gilt; touch of edgewear, contemporary signature of the missionary R. J. Pryor on endpaper with his heavy underlining in about 4 chapters plus a few marginal notes, very good.
This issue was the first to change its title from The China Mission Year Book to the China Christian Year Book, reflecting the slow establishment of a native Christian movement in China. It provides general observations and surveys on the state of the movement, as well as chapters on social life, education, missions, current events, medical work, and literature.
149. The Ogowe band: a narrative of African travel. Philadelphia: Reading and Co., 1890.
$250
First edition, 8vo, pp. [iii]-xv, [1], 278; frontispiece, portrait, 64 plates (1 in color), and 2 maps; original pictorial green cloth stamped in gilt and black on upper cover and spine; slight wear, else near fine.
The author is described on the title page as the late secretary of the Gabon and Corsico Mission and acting commercial agent for the U.S.
"All the scenes and incidents portrayed in this book are true, the only fiction consisting in making these the experiences of the Ogowe Band instead of the author. All the descriptions of scenery were copied from diaries written upon the spot, and are as accurate as it is possible to make them" (preface).
150. [Rhode Island Evangelical Consociation.] Minutes of the annual meeting of the Rhode Island Evangelical Consociation and of the Rhode Island Home Missionary Society and plea; held at Slatersville ... June 12th and 13th, 1860. Providence: M. B. Young, 33 Westminster St., 1860.
$75
8vo, pp. 22, [2]; original printed brown wrappers; corners chipped, some soiling; text very good.
Concerning the Congregational denomination, with 21 churches in R.I.
Not in Bartlett; AAS only in OCLC.
151. Mary and I; forty years with the Sioux ... with an introduction by Rev. S.C. Bartlett. Boston: Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, [1887].
$150
8vo, pp. 437; 2 plates; one signature starting, upper hinge cracked, else good or better in original brown cloth, gilt lettering on spine and upper cover.
Riggs and his wife Mary were missionaries to the Sioux, stationed mostly at Lac Qui Parle in Minnesota. Riggs was the author of the Dakota Grammar and Dictionary and the Gospel among the Dakotas.
Howes R-288.
152. With the Tibetans in tent and temple. Narrative of four years' residence on the Tibetan border, and of a journey into the far interior. Edinburgh & London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1902.
$175
First edition, 8vo, pp. [12], 9-406; frontispiece, folding map, and 12 plates; light wear and soiling, but generally a very good, sound and clean copy.
"A Canadian doctor and missionary, Mrs. Rijnhart lived and traveled among the Tibetans during the years 1895-99. Her child died and her husband Peter disappeared during this period. She at last reached Tachienlu via Jyekundo after a two months' desperate journey" (Yakushi).
Yakushi R232
153. [Sacred History in Mi'kmaq.] Minoi sigentatimgeoiei gisna espi ginamatimgeoel. Catechisme de perseverance ... Sacred history in Micmac. Restigouche P. Q.: Micmac Messenger, 1918.
$125
First edition, 12mo, pp. 78; bound with as issued: Mesoi maoi alasotmamgeoel. Tapoooei neogtipongeg gis oen minoi sigentasit teli ginamot... Catechisme de preseverance (2) liturgique pp. [79] 80-198; 56 zinc-block illustrations between both titles; title in French, English and Micmac; table of contents in English, main text in Mi'kmaq; cloth backed pink paper covered boards; corners bumped, else near fine.
Pacifique de Valigny, née Henri-Joseph-Louis Buisson, was a Capucin French missionary who wrote and published a number of religious materials for the benefit of the Mi'kmaq and Gaspe people. A version of the Petite histoire was also published without the second section.
154. [Sacred History in Mi'kmaq.] Petite histoire de la religion en Micmac by Lnoi Patlias. Sacred history in Micmac. Sag metj teli pmi alasotmeoinoigmel osgitgamog. Nouvelle edition. Restigouche P. Q.: Micmac Messenger, 1921.
$125
12mo, pp. 78; bound with as issued: Mesoi maoi alasotmamgeoel. Tapoooei neogtipongeg gis oen minoi sigentasit teli ginamot... Catechisme de preseverance (2) liturgique pp. [79] 80-198; 56 zinc-block illustrations between both titles; title in French, English and Micmac; table of contents in English, main text in Mi'kmaq; cloth backed blue paper boards; near fine.
Pacifique de Valigny, née Henri-Joseph-Louis Buisson, was a Capucin French missionary who wrote and published a number of religious materials for the benefit of the Mi'kmaq and Gaspe people. A version of the Petite histoire was published without the second section. Only 4 copies are recorded in OCLC with both parts, all of them in Canada.
155. [Sacred History in Mi'kmaq.] Petite histoire de la religion en Micmac by Lnoi Patlias. Sacred history in Micmac. Sag metj teli pmi alasotmeoinoigmel osgitgamog. Nouvelle edition. Restigouche P. Q.: Micmac Messenger, 1921.
$100
12mo, pp. 78; 23 zinc-block illustrations; title in French, English and Micmac; table of contents in English, main text in Mi'kmaq; pink and gray paper boards; pages evenly toned; near fine.
Pacifique de Valigny, née Henri-Joseph-Louis Buisson, was a Capucin French missionary who wrote and published a number of religious materials for the benefit of the Mi'kmaq and Gaspe people.
156. [Chinese.] A collection of Chinese proverbs ... revised and enlarged by the addition of some six hundred proverbs by the Rev. C. Wilfrid Allan. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press; London: Probsthain & C., 1926.
$150
8vo, pp. [2], vi, 381, [3], xiv (index); very good and sound in original blue cloth, gilt-stamped spine.
157. The language of the Sangleys: a Chinese vernacular in missionary sources of the seventeenth century. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2011.
$250
First edition, 8vo, pp. xxii, 411, [1]; 35 color facsimiles on plates at the back, tables throughout the text; fine copy in original pictorial laminate boards.
Issued as no. 98 in the publisher's Sinica Leidensia series.
158. In the Ojibway country. A story of early missions on the Minnesota frontier. Walhalla, N.D.: Chas H. Lee, publisher, 1911.
$250
First edition, 8vo, pp. [4], xv, [1], 188; frontispiece portrait, map, 14 plates; likely a remainder, the gatherings stitched but without covers; very good.
"The greater portion of the materials embraced in this little volume have been gathered from private journals and correspondence ... [and] early missionary labors among the native tribes of our northern frontier" (foreword).
159. Jesuit mission presses in the Pacific Northwest. A history and bibliography of imprints. 1876-1899. [Portland, Oregon]: Champoeg Press, 1957.
$75
First edition, limited to 804 copies designed and printed by Lawton Kennedy; with and original imprint laid in, 8vo, pp. [5], 76; partially unopened, decorations in black and red; frontispiece portrait tipped in, 9 plates; fine copy in red pictorial cloth, gilt spine.
160. [Tamil.] சொற்கள் [drop title] (= Tamulisches Elementarschulbuch). [Jaffna: Press of the American Mission, 1835].
$450
12mo, pp. 12; text in Tamil in three columns, with vocabulary of increasing complexity; original paper wrappers, fine.
One copy only in OCLC, in Germany.
161. Our work and our play. Changli, China: [publisher not identified, n.d., ca. 1930s].
$150
7" x 5", pp. 33, [1]; stab-bound in original blue wrappers printed in gilt; some fading at the edges, otherwise, very good.
Concerns agriculture in China, the monitoring thereof with "experiment stations," Chinese farmers, and with sections on forestry, horticulture, and future work. Willard and Alice Simpson were American missionaries working in China. Their papers are at Yale.
Berkeley, Yale, Emory, Nebraska Wesleyan, National Agricultural Library, and Columbia in OCLC.
162. Proverbs and common sayings from the Chinese, together with much related and unrelated matter interspersed with observations on Chinese things-in-general. New and revised edition. Shanghai: printed at the American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1902.
$325
First printing of the revised edition, 8vo, pp. [2], vii, [1], 374, xxix, [1]; contemporary quarter maroon morocco, gilt-lettered spine; light wear else very good, sound, and clean.
Wikipedia notes that Arthur Henderson Smith (1845-1932) was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who was noted for spending 54 years as a missionary in China and writing books which presented China to foreign readers. These books include Chinese Characteristics, Village Life in China, The Uplift of China, and China in Convulsion.
163. Proverbs and common sayings from the Chinese, together with much related and unrelated matter interspersed with observations on Chinese things-in-general. New and revised edition. Shanghai: printed at the American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1914.
$250
8vo, pp. [2], vii, [1], 374, xxix, [1]; contemporary quarter black cloth, gilt-lettered spine; light wear else very good, sound, and clean.
Wikipedia notes that Arthur Henderson Smith (1845-1932) was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions who was noted for spending 54 years as a missionary in China and writing books which presented China to foreign readers. These books include Chinese Characteristics, Village Life in China, The Uplift of China, and China in Convulsion.
164. Grammar of the Pima or Névome, a language of Sonora, from a manuscript of the XVIII century. New York: Cramoisy Press, 1862.
$400
First edition limited to 160 copies, 80 of them, as here, on large paper; large 4to, pp. [2], viii, [9]-97, [1];
bound with, as issued: Doctrina Christiana y confesionario en lengua Névome, o sea la Pima... San Augustin de la Florida, 1862, pp. 32; two tears in the top margin of the first title page neatly repaired; all else near fine in recent blue cloth, red morocco label on spine. Issued as Volume V in Shea's Library of American Linguistics. Nicely printed by Joel Munsell in Albany.
Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3642 and 3643. Sabin 84380: "According to the editor's advertisement, the author of the work is unknown, but he was probably a Jesuit missionary. The manuscript may have been brought to Spain after the suppression of the order in Mexico in 1767. It was obtained by Mr. Smith from the collection of the late Bartolomé Gallardo of Toledo and is now in the library of the New York Historical Society."
165. A narrative of an exploratory visit to each of the consular cities of China, and to the islands of Hong Kong and Chusan, in behalf of the Church Missionary Society, in the years 1844, 1845, 1846. London: Seeley, Burnside, & Seeley, Fleet Street; Hatchard & Son, Piccadilly; J. Nisbet, Berners Street, 1847.
$950
First edition, 8vo, pp. [4], iv, [12], 532; double-page map hand-colored in outline, 12 lithograph plates; original brown cloth neatly rebacked with old spine laid down; gilt vignette on upper cover, gilt-stamped spine, endpapers renewed; a very good, sound, and clean copy.
Though the purpose of Smith's exploration was missionary, he has plenty to say about local customs, factors relating to trade, and the general condition of China after the Opium Wars had opened it up. He comments on female infanticide and notes the drain of specie from China due to the thriving opium trade from the West. There are also excellent descriptions of Canton, Whampoa, the local business climate, Hong Kong, Macao, etc.
Lust 385; Cordier, Sinica, 2115.
166. Southern Board of Foreign Missions. Missionary paper no. III. Premium tract [wrapper title]. Prospects of the heathen for eternity [drop title]. Charleston, [S.C.]: Observer Office Press, 1835.
$150
16mo, pp. 20; original printed green wrappers; fine.
Smyth (1808-1873) was born in Belfast and graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1831. On his way to the Florida Presbytery he stopped to fill in temporarily in Charleston and a year later he had a permanent job there as a pastor at the Second Presbyterian Church.
"He had a habit of preaching too long, or so some in the congregation thought. In order to address this problem, a speaking tube was installed from the choir loft to the pulpit so the violinist could speak to Dr. Smyth and let him know he was preaching too long. Despite the warnings echoing through the sound tube’s horn so that they were loud enough for people in the front pews to hear them, he paid no attention and continued to proclaim the Word at length ... As with many ministers, Thomas Smyth was afflicted with bibliomania. He wrote during an extended trip, 'My thirst for books in London became rapacious. I overspent my supplies in procuring them at the cheap repositories and left myself in the cold winter for two or three months without a cent'” (Presbyteriansofthepast.com).
Columbia Theological, Harvard, Charleston Library Society, South Carolina Historical, and Presbyterian Historical Society in OCLC. Not in American Imprints; Sabin 85327.
167. Annales de la Propagation de la Foi. Recueil périodique des lettres des évêques et des missionnaires des missions des deux mondes, et de tous les documents relatifs aux missions et a l'oeuvre de la propagation de la foi. Collection faisant suite aux lettres édifiantes. Lyon: chez l'editeur des Annales, 1853-69.
$1,750
41 volumes, 8vo, containing 247 numbers spanning the years 1822-1869; contemporary cloth-backed marbled boards; sone wear and rubbing and the occasional cracking of the cloth, but on the whole a good set with sound bindings. This appears to be the first printing of this edition, with additional material on the early missions that did not appear in the earlier editions. This edition not found in Streit.
This trove of research material contains the Jesuit reports on their world-wide missionary activities in Asia (China, India, Malabar, Siam etc.) Africa (Abyssinia, Algiers etc.), the Middle East (Aleppo, Bagdad, Constantinople, Isfahan, Smyrna etc.), Oceania (Gambier, Marquise, Tonga etc.), including the American missions in Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky. Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Oregon, California, the Rocky Mountain regions, and Hawaii. These relations cover the Native Americans, the lives and privations of the missionaries themselves, their hunting, their travels, etc. in hundreds of letters by missionaries, bishops and priests.
168. The oldest and the newest empire: China and the United States. Hartford: published by S. S. Scranton and Company. San Francisco: H. H. Bancroft & Co., 1870.
$75
First edition, published by subscription; thick 8vo, pp. 681, [7] ads (including one for agents wanted); frontispiece and 39 plates; spine sunned, a few small cracks at the extremities; internally clean; good and sound.
Speer is described on the title page as the "corresponding secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Education, [and] formerly missionary in China and to the Chinese in California."
169. The captive missionary being an account of the country and people of Abyssinia, embracing a narrative of King Theodore's life, and his treatment of political and religious missions. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, [1868].
$750
First edition, 8vo, pp. xvi, 397, [1], [2] ads; 8 wood-engraved plates; original pictorial blue cloth stamped in gilt on upper cover and spine; binding a bit soiled and small cracks at the spine extremities, but generally a good, sound copy, or better.
Henry Aaron Stern (1820-1885) was an Anglican missionary and captive in Abyssinia. "In August 1842 he was admitted into the Hebrew College of the London Jews' Society, with the ultimate intention of becoming a missionary to the Jews." He was send first to Jerusalem, then Baghdad, and Istanbul where he stayed for nearly six years. "The London Jews' Society then directed Stern to travel to Ethiopia to preach to the Beta Israel Jews, arriving on March 10, 1860. Tewodros II of Ethiopia initially welcomed Stern, and Stern fixed his headquarters at Gondar.
"Following various slights by Lord John Russell of the British Foreign Office and others the Ethiopian emperor's attitude to the British changed. Stern was summoned to appear before the emperor at Gondar in October 1863 where Stern was beaten and imprisoned together with a Mr. Rosenthal, his LJS assistant. By the time they were transferred to prison at Amba Magdala, in November 1864, they were joined by the British consul, Charles Cameron, and other Europeans. Stern's situation was made more difficult by the fact that the emperor was made aware of uncomplimentary material in Stern's book – including having stated that the emperor's mother was a vendor of kosso – in Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia: together with a description of the Country and its various Inhabitants 1862" (Wikipedia). This lead to the British 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia under the command of Robert Napier who captured the Ethiopian capital and rescued the prisoners.
170. The lives of Mrs. Ann H. Judson and Mrs. Sarah B. Judson with a biographical sketch of Mrs. Emily C. Judson, missionaries to Burmah. Auburn: Derby and Miller, 1851.
$200
First edition, 12mo, pp. x, [3], 14-356, [4] ads; 2 engraved frontispiece portraits; top and bottom of spine chipped level with the textblock, bookplate of Minnesota Historical Society (no external markings); all else good and sound.
Ann Hasseltine Judson (1789-1826) was one of the first female American foreign missionaries. She married Adoniram Judson in 1812, and two weeks later they embarked on their mission trip to India, and in the following year, they moved on to Burma. She wrote a catechism in Burmese, and translated the books of Daniel and Jonah into Burmese. She was the first Protestant to translate any of the scriptures into Thai when in 1819 she translated the Gospel of Matthew.
Sarah, for her part, born in Alstead, New Hampshire, married the Rev. George D. Boardman, in 1825. She accompanied him to a Baptist mission in Burma, where he died in 1831. Three years later, she married the Rev. Adoniram Judson after the death of his wife Ann, and continued to proselytize with him in Burma until her health started to decline. She died on St. Helena island while on her way home to America.
171. Chinese materia medica. Vegetable kingdom. Extensively revised from Dr. F. Porter Smith's work. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1911.
$250
8vo, pp. [2], 2, [2], 558, vi; later black buckram; endpapers foxed, text clean with the occasional light spot, small scratch at fore-edge, very good.
The first of an intended set of books on the natural history of China. Stuart died shortly before the book went to press, and no other titles appeared. The preface declares this is "practically a new book" from the Materia Medica produced by Smith. It includes the Latin and Chinese names of plants, their description, and their use.
172. Scarcity of seamen [wrapper title]. . [Boston: press of J. Howe, n.d., ca. 1854].
$225
Second edition, 8vo, pp. 32; original pink printed wrappers faded, slightly chipped and partially separated.
To alleviate the shortage of able-bodied seamen, the author promotes his work as a "missionary" in the Office of the Marine Mission At Large, where applications were accepted from young men seeking employment, and the applications matched with vessels seeking crew.
NUC locates only the LC copy of the first edition of the same year. OCLC locates the Harvard, AAS, Peabody Essex, Princeton Theological, and Library Company copies only. Sabin 93547.
173. The Methodists on Sumatra. New York: Division of Education and Cultivation of the Board of Missions of the Methodist Church, n.d., [early 1950s].
$40
7" x 3¾", pp. 16; pictorial self-wrappers; fine. With a double-page map of Sumatra and 8 illustrations from photographs.
A historical and proselytizing text promoting education and schools on Sumatra.
174. An English and Oordoo dictionary, in roman characters ... revised edition; improved and enlarged. Calcutta: printed for the author at the Baptist Mission Press, Circular Road, 1852-53.
$400
2 volumes in 1 (English-Oordoo and Oordoo-English); 8vo, pp. [10], 332; [4], 256; lexicon in double column; original brown moiré cloth, gilt-stamped spine; near fine, sound copy. With the bookplate of the Baptist Mission House, Furnival Street, London.
Not in Vancil, not in the Trübner Catalogue of Dictionaries & Grammars, and not in Zaunmuller.
175. [Tibet.] The great closed land. A plea for Tibet ... With a preface by Rev. B. La Trobe. London: S. W. Partridge, [1894].
$125
4to, pp. xix, [1], 21-112; frontispiece map, and 24 wood-engraved illustrations in the text; original pictorial glazed yellow-paper-covered boards; binding a bit soiled but on the whole a good, sound, and clean copy.
"This is an acount of the Protestant (Moravian) Mission to Tibet, and contains a short history of exploration, and description of land and people" (Yakushi).
Yakushi M201.
176. [Van Lennep, Mary E.] Memoir of Mrs. Mary E. Van Lennep, only daughter of the Rev. Joel Hawes, D.D., and wife of the Rev,. Henry J. Van Lennep, missionary in Turkey. By her mother ... Seventh edition. Hartford: Belknap & Hamersley, 1847.
$100
12mo, pp. v, [4], 14-372; engraved frontispiece portrait; original brown blindstamped cloth, gilt-lettered spine; one gathering extended, else very good and clean.
After battling a long illness which kept her bedridden through much of 1841, she spent a year teaching Sunday school, and in 1843 married the Rev. Henry J. Van Lennep, a missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Shortly thereafter, she sailed with him and her father to the mission in Smyrna, Turkey. She died of dysentery in Constantinople a year later.
Sabin 30926.
177. Amarakoṣah: a metrical dictionary of the Sanskrit language with Tibetan version. Calcutta: printed at the Baptist Mission Press and published by the Asiatic Society, 1, Park Street, 1911-12.
$375
First edition, 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. [8], 200; [6], 201-384; lexicon in Sanskrit and Tibetan; mostly unopened; original printed wrappers bound in; front wrapper in volume I with old tape repair; back wrapper in volume I torn with minor loss; text toned throughout and with occasional tears entering from the margins; all else near fine in recent green cloth bindings, gilt lettering on spines. Issued as New Series, no. 1295 and 1333 in the publisher's Bibliotheca Indica series
The Amarakośa by Amarasiṃha, probably a Buddhist author, is the most renowned Sanskrit lexicographical work, seemingly composed around the middle of the first millennium CE. Amarakośa (अमरकोश) or Nāmaliñgānuśāsana is "a synonymous dictionary authored by Amarasimha of the 6th C.A.D. (or earlier). The dictionary is divided into three sections called kāṇṇās and hence popularly known as Trikāṇḍa. A major part of the lexicon deals with the synonyms and a small section, viz., nānārthavarga is devoted to homonyms; where the arrangement is according to the final consonants. The indeclinables are treated in one section while the last section is devoted to general rules for determining the genders ... Though there have been many lexicons prior to it, the Amarakośa has been most frequently referred to as an authority, in support of descriptions of words used by them while commenting on any Sanskrit text. The Catalogus Cataloqorum of Aufrecht mentions about forty commentaries on Amarakośa. The author has consulted his predecessors in compiling the lexicon as acknowledged by him in the introductory stanzas" (wisdomlib[dot]org).
178. For the promotion of Christian knowledge. The character of the Christian mysteries, in a dialogue between a Church of England missionary preacher and a Chinese mandarin, wherein the mysteries of the Christian religion are set forth: the design of which is to stimulate an enquiry after truth, and to promote a knowledge of Christianity. Taken from the French of Voltaire, with various alterations, additions, & marginal references. As originally printed by R,. Carlisle, London, for the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. New York: [G. H. Evans?], 1827.
$135
First American edition, 8vo, pp. 8; removed from binding; very good.
This edition not in American Imprints or OCLC, but both record an 8-page "2nd New York edition," published by Evans in 1829.
179. Dictionary of Yoruba language. Part I: English-Yoruba. Part II: Yoruba-English. Lagos: Church Missionary Society Bookshop, 1913.
$75
First edition, small 8vo, pp. [8], 259, [3]; lexicon in double column; original red cloth stamped in white on upper cover and spine (spine faded); very good and sound.
180. Farewell letters to a few friends in Britain and America, on returning to Bengal, in 1821. New York: E. Bliss & E. White, 1821.
$350
First American edition, small 8vo, pp. 250; original tan paper-backed drab boards, printed paper spine label; a good, sound copy with a contemporary American bookplate of John F. Johnston, Newbury Vermont.
Ward (1769-1823) apprenticed with a printer and bookseller of Derby named Drewry and was later called as a missionary printer to the Danish settlement of Serampúr. "In India Ward's time was chiefly occupied in superintending the printing press, by means of which the scriptures, translated into Bengáli, Mahratta, Tamil, and twenty-three other languages, were disseminated throughout India. Numerous philological works were also issued. Ward found time, however, to keep a copious diary and to preach the gospel to the natives" (DNB). In 1818 Ward left India in bad health to travel to Britain and the United States, returning to Bengal in 1821.
The letters in the present volume are mostly of a religious nature, but also of interest is a letter to Miss Hope, describing the horrific conditions of women in India and asking for help in establishing associations throughout Britain and America to address the issue.
American Imprints 7568.
181. A letter from Noah Webster, Esq. of New-Haven, Connecticut, to a friend in explanation and defence of the distinguishing doctrines of the Gospel [wrapper title]. The peculiar doctrines of the Gospel... [drop title]. New York: published by subscription...and sold at the Theological and Classical Bookstore of Williams and Whiting...J. Seymour, printer, 1809.
$850
First edition, 8vo, pp. 23, [1]; without a title page, as issued; original blue printed wrappers; one short tear and a small piece missing from the corner of the front wrapper; all else very good.
"In 1808 Webster and Judge Thomas Dawes of Boston, one of his wife's brothers-in-law, discussed religion in their correspondence. Webster, on December 20, 1808, wrote a detailed letter summarizing his religious experiences and beliefs; Dawes acknowledged it on February 6, 1809, expressing rather liberal views, and on February 23 Webster wrote a long answer, which became the present text...The compiler believes this printing to have been the first separate edition" (Skeel).
It was also published in the Panoplist and the Missionary Magazine United, edited by Jedidiah Morse. The verso of the front wrapper and both sides of the back wrapper contain a brief summary of the firm Williams & Whiting and publisher's advertisements.
Skeel 706.
182. Grammar and dictionary of the Bobangi language as spoken over a part of the Upper Congo West Central Africa. Complied and prepared for the Baptist Missionary Society Mission in the Congo independent state. London: Baptist Missionary Society and Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd., 1899.
$50
First edition, small 8vo, pp. xix, [3], 499, [1]; lexicon in double column; bookplate of the Baptist Missionary Society, Mission House Library; original blue cloth, spine a bit faded, front hinge starting; good and sound.
183. Archive of correspondence to Frederick Wells Williams. [New Haven, India, England and Japan: 1877-1915].
$1,750
A collection of 42 items, mostly manuscript letters signed, from a variety of academics, administrators, and Yale men, to the sinologist Frederick Wells Williams (1857-1928), with a few letters from Williams' father-in-law, the theologian Hemen Lincoln Wayland, to his daughter (Williams' wife) Fanny. Frederick Wells Williams was the son of Samuel Wells Williams, also a sinologist and missionary to China. The elder Williams was the first professor of Chinese language and literature in the United States. The younger Williams continued this trade and was himself a professor of Oriental history at Yale.
The majority of the archive is comprised of manuscript letters addressed to Williams, dealing primarily with matters of travel. Williams planned visits to Panama, Morocco, and particularly India, and sought letters of introduction or meetings with men with connections there. The letters chiefly concern meeting up or making plans, with some exceptions as noted below. Included are ALS's from:
1. Ion Perdicaris, Greek-American heir most famous for being kidnapped in Morocco for a high ransom and compelling Roosevelt to declare "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!" Perdicaris assists Williams in making connections in Morocco.
2. Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury, who provided 2 colorful letters, one from London: “I am staying here… at this hotel… which bears the honored name Thackery, but which to my horror … I find is a temperance hotel. I shall consequentially not stay long.” The other a cryptic 1p note reading “You can rely upon me to stand by you unflinchingly on the solemn occasion to which you refer, and all the more readily that there are no alien interests to interpose. I shall loom up at half-past six.” Lounsbury was an English scholar at Yale and an authority on Chaucer.
3. Guy Lestrange, a British Orientalist, arranging a meeting
4. William Graham Sumner, Yale Professor of social science. He asks Williams to find a replacement for his wife to speak at the Soc. Sci. Club. and compliments him on his previous lecture.
5. Charles Lewis Slattery, a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, who provides a “ghost signature” (no letter included)
6. John Ferguson Weir, painter, sculptor, and teacher at Yale, who writes a letter of profuse thanks. “I cannot let the day close without thanking you again for what your friendship prompted and effected – not without great painstaking on your part I know – but which has for me a depth of meaning not to be put in words, though it fills my thoughts.”
7. George Trumbull Ladd, Clark Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy, apologizing for missing a social call. “I was so absorbed in trying out some new rolls that I did not know anyone had entered the house.”
8. Poultney Bigelow, a Yale classmate of Williams’ and traveling journalist. “Just in from the Alps (and the Himalayas) and the first message from my mound of P. O. Matter is your “US & China” – about which no man can write better than yourself. It was a great pleasure to me last winter in the East to note how tenderly your name is cherished in the minds of scholars & trust you will have many more years of usefulness adding ever to your father’s reputation & your own.”
9. Maurice Bloomfield, American Sanskrit scholar, thanking Williams for assistance.
10. Morgan Shuster, providing a letter of introduction to General Goethals of the Panama Canal Zone, a year after the canal’s completion
11. John Bucher thanking Williams for sending something to him.
12. Theodore Morrison, an administrator and educator on India, regarding letters of introduction for a trip Williams is planning
13. A letter from an unknown author introducing H S Bayley of Hyderabad and “His Highness” (the title I can’t decipher) and advising on how to prepare for Williams’ arrival.
14. C. S. Mellen, “the last of the railway tsars.” Mellen says he will not be able to attend a meeting of the Social Science club because he is having a dinner with the employees and labor orgs of the Boston & Main Railroad.
15. J. G. Jennings inviting Williams to stay with him at his home near Muir College, Allahabad. Jenning was at the time president of the college.
In addition to this parade of men of note, there are a few other letters including:
1. Five letters from M. Arao Oiwa, a translator, guide, and print dealer from Japan, discussing the print market in Japan, promising products, and encouraging Williams to send friends and students to Japan to travel. Oita charges 15 yen a day per person to guide them around the country and speaks warmly of his relationship with Williams.
2. A vitriolic ALS from a Maria Smith, who has taken offense at Williams’ comment on the behavior of Christian missionaries in China. “You say also that through it all [the Chinese] have maintained their own ‘superior culture and moral principles.’ Superior culture! And moral principles! As exemplified no doubt in the condition of their women; the state of marriage; the extremely sanitary condition of the country; the system of education; the political organization, and a thousand other notorious systems of debauchery and corruption which have made China what she is and have kept her where she is, sunk in ignorance and superstition.”
3. Four personal letters between H. L. Wayland and Fannie, Williams’ wife. Wayland discusses news about the neighborhood and asks after his grandchildren.
4. A manuscript invitation to attend the second meeting of the Excelsior Society of Yale, and to provide a lecture. Dated 1908, Signed “Y. Z. China”?
Also included are a few items of ephemera, photo portraits of two Wayland men, H.L. Wayland’s pamphlet “What Mr. Jenkins thinks” Fannie’s grade book, marriage license, and certificate of proficiency for Remington typewriting, menu for the 20th anniversary of the Yale Wolf’s Head society, of which Williams was a member, a menu to the Norfolk Inn, on which a pen illustration of women at a table has been drawn, a broadside schedule of services for Stewart Street Baptist Church, with Wayland providing a sermon, and a 6.25” x 10” photograph of an outdoor scene, likely Hawaii, with figures labeled in manuscript “Norman Garstin, J. B. Alexander, H. H. Garstin” Norman and H. H. Garstin were English born businessmen who managed a large plantation in Hawaii and moved to California in 1892.
Overall an interesting look at the sort of connections a Yale professor maintained at the turn of the 20th century.
184. A narrative of missionary enterprises in the South Sea islands; with remarks upon the natural history of the islands, origin, languages, tradition, and usages of the inhabitants ...Twenty-first thousand. London: John Snow, 1840.
$200
8vo, pp. ix, [1], 154; text in double column; frontispiece portrait, folding map of Polynesia, plus a number of wood engravings in the text;
bound with: Koempfer, Engelbert, An account of Japan...abridged and arranged from the translation of J. G. Schuechzer, pp. xvi, 105; text in double column, wood-engraved frontispiece and vignette title page;
bound with: Bligh, William, Lieut., Narrative of the mutiny on the Bounty, on a voyage to the South Seas...to which are added some additional particulars, and a relation of the subsequent fate of the mutineers, and of the settlement in Pitcairn's Island, n.p., n.d., pp. 72; text in double column;
bound with: The life and adventures of Peter Wilkins a Cornish man: relating particularly his shipwreck near the South Pole...By R. S., a passenger in the Hector, n.p., n.d., pp. vii, [1], 116; text in double column, wood-engraved frontispiece and vignette title page;
together, 4 titles in 1 octavo volume, bound in contemporary quarter calf over marbled boards, marbled paper peeling a bit on the lower cover, spine a bit discolored, but in all a good, sound volume.
185. Across the desert of Gobi. A narrative of an escape during the Boxer Uprising, June to September, 1900. Hamilton, Ohio: Press of Republican Publishing Company, 1901.
$325
First edition, 8vo, pp. 26; frontispiece, full-page map, 2 plates, complimentary slip tipped in at p. 1 reading "with the compliments of the author; original, green cloth, gilt-stamped on upper cover; about fine.
Four missionaries on the run from Peking into Siberia. "The out-burst of the Chinese against all foreigners in June, 1900, was so sudden, that many of our missionaries in the interior were unable to escape, and were murdered. Many others were saved in ways almost miraculous. The story of the siege of Peking is still fresh in our minds. The following letters from the Rev. Mark Williams to his children describe the escape of one company of missionaries across the Desert of Gobi into Siberia" (p. [5]).
186. Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. Jesuit missionary, scientist, engineer and diplomat 1623-1688. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1994.
$150
First edition, 8vo, pp. 602, [26] ads; frontispiece, 4 tables and 69 illustrations; fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688) was a Flemish Jesuit missionary in China during the Qing dynasty. "He was an accomplished mathematician and astronomer and proved to the court of the Kangxi Emperor that European astronomy was more accurate than Chinese astronomy. He then corrected the Chinese calendar and was later asked to rebuild and re-equip the Beijing Ancient Observatory, being given the role of Head of the Mathematical Board and Director of the Observatory" (Wikipedia).
187. The empire of the Hittites ... With decipherment of Hittite inscriptions by Prof. A.H. Sayce, LL. D. A Hittite map by Col. Sir C. Wilson ... and Capt. Conder, R.E. and a complete set of Hittite inscriptions revised by Mr. W.H. Rylands, F.S.A. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1884.
$425
First American edition, 8vo, pp. xx, [2], 200, [2] ads (for the London publisher, Nisbet); frontispiece map, 18 lithograph plates (3 double-page), a few illustrations in the text; original pictorial brown cloth stamped in gilt and black; covers very lightly spotted, the title page and tissue guard a bit foxed, but in all a fine, tight copy.
The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people living in what is now modern-day Turkey, who formed an empire between 1600-1180 BCE. William Wright (1837-1899) was an Irish missionary who first introduced the recently discovered Hittite Empire to the general public.
188. The conversion of missionaries: liberalism in American Protestant missions in China, 1907-1932. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, [1997].
$40
First edition, 8vo, pp. xiv, [2], 247, [1]; map and 7 illustrations in the text; fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
"Xi tells the story of Buck and two other American missionaries to China in the early twentieth century who gradually came to question, and eventually reject, the evangelical basis of Protestant missions as they developed an appreciation for Chinese religions and culture" (jacket blurb).
189. [Hindustani.] A dictionary, Hindustani and English. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press ... sold by Messrs. W. Thacker and Co. [et al.], 1847.
$650
8vo, pp. iv, [2], 589, [1], 19 (addenda); lexicon in double column; text in Roman and Arabic character throughout; contemporary quarter sheep over marbled paper-covered boards, extremities rubbed and worn, label lettered in gilt a bit rubbed; good and sound.
Yates (1792-1845) is well known for his Sanskrit grammar and vocabulary, and his Hindustani grammar (see DNB). In 1831, oddly, he received a master's degree from Brown University in Providence, R.I.
Not in Vancil; not in Zaünmuller; not in the Trübner Catalogue of Dictionaries and Grammars; not in the Astor Catalogue of Books relating to the Languages and Literature of Asia, Africa and the Oceanic Islands; not in Collison, Dictionaries of English and Foreign Languages; only the Yale copy is cited in NUC. OCLC, on the other hand, turns up 14, only 5 of which (Indiana, Yale, Georgetown, San Francisco Public Library, and Dartmouth) in the U.S.
190. [Hindustani.] Introduction to the Hindoostanee language in three parts. Second edition, improved. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press and sold by Messrs. W. Thacker and Co., 1836.
$375
8vo, pp. xiv, [2], 394; text in Roman and Arabic character throughout; old library rubberstamps on title page, verso of title page, first page of text, and occasionally elsewhere in the text; old tape repair on p. ix and 1, a few marginals tears, previous owner's bookplate over other earlier bookplates; all else good and sound, or better, in later quarter burgundy morocco, gilt lettered direct on gilt-decorated spine which shows at the bottom library call numbers in gilt.
The contents include a Hindustani grammar, a vocabulary, and reading lessons, including 35 fables, primarily from Aesop. First published in 1827.
OCLC locates three copies only, all in the UK. The Trübner catalogue notes only the 7th edition of 1845.
191. The Old Testament in the Bengálí language. Translated from the original Hebrew by the Calcutta Baptist missionaries with native assistants. Calcutta: printed at the Baptist Mission Press, for the Bible Translation Society, and the American and Foreign Bible Society, 1844.
$450
8vo, pp. 843; full contemporary calf, black gilt-lettered calf spine labels; ex-Baptist Missionary Society Mission House Library with their early 20th-century spine label and bookplate to front pastedown; preliminaries a bit dampstained, else very good and sound.
Darlow & Moule 2079.
192. [India.] First lessons in Oriya.. Cuttack: Orissa Mission Press, 1912.
$85
Small 8vo, pp. [2] 2 iii-[iv] 176; small nick in spine else very good in orig. black cloth.
First published in 1900, this is a revised edition containing "many additional idiomatic and other sentences" (preface). Oriya is an Indo-Germanic language of northern India and akin to Assamese and Bengali. Cuttack was the site of a mission for the Baptist Missionary Society, with which Rev. Young was associated, and is located on the northwest coast of the Bay of Bengal, about 200 miles southwest of Calcutta.
193. Zeisberger's Indian dictionary English, German, Iroquois -- the Onondaga and Algonquin -- the Delaware printed from the original manuscript in Harvard College Library. Cambridge: John Wilson and Son, University Press, 1887.
$300
First edition, large paper copy, with a slightly altered title (as noted in Pilling), 4to, pp. v, [1], 236; near fine copy in original terra cotta cloth, gilt lettering on spine.
Zeisberger labored as a Moravian missionary chiefly among the Delaware Indians in the Ohio region for better than sixty years, from 1740 until his death in 1808. In 1745 he took part in arranging the treaty that allied the Six Nations with the English, and in 1791 he established a Delaware settlement in Fairfield on the banks of the Thames River in Upper Canada. The dictionary was prepared for the press from Zeisberger's manuscript in the library at Harvard by Eben Norton Horsford.
Pilling, Algonquin, pp. 546-47; Sabin 106301.
194. [Chinese.] The Bible in China. The history of the Union Version or the culmination of Protestant missionary Bible translation in China. Sank Aujustin: Monumenta Serica Institute, [1999].
$250
First edition, 8vo, pp. 456, [22] ads; fine in original green cloth stamped in white.
Issued as no. XLV in the publisher's Monograph Series.