Recent Acquisitions
January 21st, 2025
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A note on OCLC
As is now the norm, OCLC counts are tentative, at best, as we recognize that searches using different qualifiers will often turn up different results. Searches are now further complicated by the vast numbers of digital, microfilm, and even print-on-demand copies, which have polluted the database considerably, making it difficult, without numerous phone calls or emails, to determine the actual number of tangible copies. Hence, even though the counts herein have been recently checked, most all should be taken as a measure of approximation.
1. [Almanac.] The sixpenny comic almanack, for 1837, illustrated with comic engravings [wrapper title]. The new comic almanack, a diary of fun and facts for 1837, illustrated with comic engravings, with a scientific almanack, by an eminent astronomer. London: printed and published by J. Thompson, 51, Gloucester-street, Lambeth, n.d., [1836?].
$125
16mo (approx. 7" x 4¼"), pp. [12]; 5 wood engravings in the text; original pictorial green wrappers, a.e.g.; some wrinkling and soiling of the wrappers, else very good.
Not found in OCLC.
2. American Red Cross guide to Calcutta for servicemen. N.p.: n.d., [ca. 1940s].
$150
Large broadsheet printed in red and black, 11" x 18", folding down into 10 pages (5½" x 4½"); full spread shows a map of Calcutta, with transportation, restaurants, theatres, dancing clubs, churches hotels, shopping centers, etc. located, and directions for city tours and river tours; illustration on front panel; near fine.
Intended for the use of the U.S. military in World War II.
Four in OCLC, 3 in Wisconsin (!) and one more at Minnesota.
3. An analytical Chinese-English dictionary compiled for the China Inland Mission. Shanghai: China Inland Mission and America Presbyterian Mission Press, 1900.
$150
4to, pp. v, [1], 637, [3]; text in triple column, original half sheep, gilt label on spine, marbled edges; spelling table sheet laid in; boards worn, spelling sheet chipped, affecting text, offsetting on one spread, good.
4. [Bible in High Wenli, O.T., Pentateuch.] 舊遺詔書 [= Pentateuch in High Wenli]. Ningbo: The Chinese and American Holy Classic Book Establishment, 1846-7.
$7,000
9¾" x 6", 70, 59, 41, 61, 52 leaves; stab stitched Chinese style; wrappers perished, title sheet largely perished with a large portion of it encased in paper for preservation, fore-edge folds splitting; housed in a new clamshell box.
High Wenli is the term used for Classical Literary Chinese. The first protestant Bibles in Chinese were translated into High Wenli, as it was the most universally comprehensible. Wylie states that Gutzlaff began this translation of the Old Testament together with Medhurst, Bridgman and J. R. Morrision in 1836, and was largely responsible for its completion.
"In 1840, Gützlaff (under the anglicized name Charles Gutzlaff) became part of a group of four people (with Walter Henry Medhurst, Elijah Coleman Bridgman, and John Robert Morrison) who cooperated to translate the Bible into Chinese. The translation of the Hebrew part was done mostly by Gützlaff, with the exception that the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua were done by the group collectively. This translation, completed in 1847, is well-known due to its adoption by the revolutionary peasant leader Hong Xiuquan of the Taipingtianguo movement (who started the Taiping Rebellion) as some of the reputed early doctrines of the organization. This Bible translation was a version (in High Wen-li) correct and faithful to the original" (Wikipedia).
Serica Project no. 324 (i.e. Bodleian), Columbia only in OCLC. Not in Darlow and Moule.
5. The invention of printing in China and its spread westward. New York: Columbia University Press, [1931].
$100
Revised edition (first published 1925), 8vo, pp. xxvi, [2], 282; large folding table printed in colors showing the evolution of paper and printing and their spread westward, folding map, numerous illustrations on plates and in the text; fine copy in original black cloth stamped in gilt on spine. Without the dust jacket.
6. Chinese seals: the collection of Ralph C. Lee ... Photographs by Marjory Gay Walter. [Taipei?, Taiwan: privately printed, 1966].
$125
Privately printed by Allan Lee in Taiwan ... edition limited to 600 copies (this, no. 71); 8vo, pp. [2], iv, [2], 112, [2]; frontispiece portrait, numerous illustrations throughout, some printed in red; fine copy in original pictorial blue cloth stamped in gilt on the upper cover, preserving the original mylar jacket.
Includes a history of the seals, Chinese chronology, a brief biography of the author.
7. Cobbett's lectures. Confessions of Thos. Goodman. [From the Courier Newspaper.]. Grantham: printed by Samuel Ridge, High-Street, 1831.
$175
Bifolium, approx. 7½" x 4¾", pp. 3, [1]; last page blank; fine.
"Thomas Goodman confessed to setting fire to a barn after hearing a lecture by William Cobbett who told his listeners that unless farmers paid higher wages to their laborers fires might take place in their area. The confession of Thomas Goodman was written in the presence of magistrates Walter Burrell, Henry Tredcroft and Francis Scawen Blunt" (Adelphi).
Adelphi University only in OCLC.
8. The interpreter: or booke, containing the signification of words. Wherein is set forth the true meaning of all, or the most part of such words and termes, as are mentioned in the law writers. London: printed [by Augustine Mathewes] for VVilliam Sheares, 1637.
$2,500
4to, pp. [584]; [fleur-de-lys]⁴ A-4C⁴; full contemporary brown calf, with ownership initials on upper cover of "C W" but with CW's name crossed out at the top of the title page and another (indecipherable) added; corner of title with tear and small loss making the signature difficult to read; bookplate, likely that of "C W" partially eradicated on verso of title; endpapers replaced at a later (but not recent) date; spine in 5 panels, with loss of leather in the top and bottom panel; joints cracked, cords showing, extremities rubbed, but on the whole a good, and but for the endpapers, unrestored, and sound.
This edition has "VVilliam Sheares" in the imprint, among other differences; A1r, column 1, line 6 ends "proster-".
First published in 1607, suppressed by proclamation and burnt by order of the House of Commons in 1610 on the charge that the author advanced the opinion that the English monarchy was absolute. The book was reissued twice in 1637, with no priority apparent.
Cowell (1554-1611), a disciple of William Bancroft, the bishop of London and later the bishop of Canterbury, devoted himself to the study of civil law, which he taught at both Oxford and Cambridge, where he was appointed vicar-general. Although the book won for Cowell an academic reputation, his discourses under the headings "king," "parliament," "prerogative," "recoveries," and "subsidies" were denounced "as insulting alike to the king and commons, and was burnt by the common hangman on 26 March, 1616" (see DNB).
Alston XVIII, 39; STC 5901.
9. Plantae Davidianae ex Sinarum imperio. Premiere partie: Plantes de Mongolie du nord et du centre de la chine. [With:] Deuxieme partie: Plantes du Thibet orientale (Province de Moupine). Paris: G. Masson, 1888-84.
$1,750
First edition, 4to, pp. [4], 390; [6], 334 (i.e., 234); 44 black & white botanical plates (1 double-page and hand colored); contemporary red cloth-backed red paper-covered boards, gilt-stamped spines; the text lightly foxed throughout but the plates remain relatively clean; a very good, sound, and complete set.
Adrien René Franchet (1834-1900) was a French botanist, based at the Paris Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. He is noted for his extensive work describing the flora of China and Japan, based on the collections made by French Catholic missionaries in China.
Nissen 646
10. Mahatma Gandhi: a memorial service. New York: The Community Church, [1948].
$125
8vo (approx. 9¼" x 6¼"), pp. 19, [1]; original pictorial wrappers; near fine.
The memorial service "held in tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at the Community Church of New York on February 1st, 1948, two days after his assassination. The presiding ministers were John Haynes Holmes and Donald Harrington. The service is published on request of many of the more than seventeen hundred persons who came to pay homage to the greatest man of our time. The drawing on the cover [of Gandhi] was given by Russell O. Berg, artist, and friend of the Church" (p. 1).
11. Les arts de l'Asie centrale. La collection Paul Pelliot du Musée national des arts asiatiques--Guimet. [Paris]: Réunion des musées nationaux, [1995-96].
$950
First edition, 2 volumes, folio, pp. [4], 372, [2]; [4], 446, [2]; extensively illustrated throughout in color and black & white; together with the English text, as issued: The Arts of Central Asia, translated by Hero Friesen, in collaboration with Roderick Whitfield, London: Serendia Publications, [1996], small folio, pp. 235, [1]; text in double column; a perfectly fine set in original publisher's faux vellum-backed orange cloth gilt, with slipcases, and contained in the original publisher's shipping cartons.
French sinologist and orientalist Paul Eugene Pelliot (1878-1945) travelled throughout Central Asia during the expedition of 1906-1909, principally in search of early Dunhuang manuscripts and returned to Paris not only with manuscripts, but also with paintings, rubbings, antiquities and scientific materials, which formed the richest addition ever given to the oriental collections of the various museums in Paris.
12. English-Balochi colloquial dictionary. Hertford: published by the Author, 1925.
$150
8vo, 2 volumes, pp. xl, 400; [2], 401-826, [2]; each entry with a simple sentence in Balochi, gloss, and notes; full publisher's brown cloth; hinges and corners rubbed, some worming to the front board of volume II plus a few holes in margins of textblock, ex-Library of Congress, with their stamp and residue of pockets on lower endpapers, text clean and sound, a good, usable set.
Includes the "first comprehensive grammar" of Balochi, per its review in the Royal Asiatic Society Journal.
13. The status of Shanghai. A historical review of the international settlement. Its future development and possibilities through Sino-Foreign co-operation. Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, Limited, 1929.
$150
First edition, 8vo, pp. xiv, [2], 202; publisher's red paper-covered boards backed in black cloth; gilt title on spine; a bit of rubbing to the front cover, else a very good, sound, and clean copy.
Hsia was professor of international law at the University of Shanghai.
14. The oil vendor and the sing-song girl: a Chinese tale in five cantos ... Translated from the German by Fritz Ruesch. Peking: Poplar Island Press, 1938.
$100
3 volumes, approx. 6" x 4", title pages printed in red and black; original red cloth, stab-sewn, and contained in a matching red cloth folding case with bone clasps; spine of box sunned; all else very good and sound.
Wikipedia tells us that Vincenz Maria Hermann Hundhausen (1878-1955) was a German national, who was also a German-language professor at Peking University and a translator of Chinese works into German. Hundhausen owned the Poplar Island Press, based out of his Beijing house. He lived and worked in China for over 30 years.
15. Chinese fairy tales. [The priest, the moonmaid and the fool's magic. Hai and the fairy songster. The stone monkey. The mysterious boat-girl.] Adapted by Phyllis Juby. Illustrated in the Chinese manner by A. S. Konya. Hong Kong: The Newspaper Enterprise Limited, 1934.
$225
4 volumes, approx. 6" x 4½", 20 pages each; original dyed and pictorial wrappers, stab-sewn, and contained in a purple folding case with paper label on the upper cover, bone clasps not preserved; hinges of case with some cracking of the paper; all else near fine.
"Phyllis Konya (née Juby) was an arts journalist, reviewer and theatre historian who married Sandor (A.S.) Konya in Cape Town in 1928. The pair moved to China and Phyllis began working for The China Mail as a journalist, and publishing some books (illustrated by her husband) based on the couple’s travels in China, including Chinese Fairy Tales (Newspaper Enterprise, 1934)" (chinarhyming.com).
16. Campaigning on the Oxus, and the fall of Khiva. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874.
$225
First edition, 8vo, pp. x, 438, [2] ads; double-page map hand-colored in outline, wood-engraved frontispiece and 22 wood-engraved plates, plus 8 wood engravings in the text; edges rubbed, but on the whole a very good, sound, and clean copy.
Januarius Aloysius MacGahan (1844-1878) was an American journalist and war correspondent working for the New York Herald and the London Daily News. "He learned in 1873 that Russia was planning to invade the khanate of Khiva, in Central Asia. Defying a Russian ban on foreign correspondents, he crossed the Kyzyl-Kum desert on horseback and witnessed the surrender of the city of Khiva to the Russian Army. There he met a Russian Lieutenant Colonel, Mikhail Skobelev, who later became famous as Russian commander during the Russian–Turkish War of 1877–78. MacGahan described his adventures in a popular book, Campaigning on the Oxus and the fall of Khiva (1874)" (Wikipedia). He died in June of 1878 of typhoid fever at the young age of 35.
Yakushi M28 not noting this American edition.
17. [Marco Polo.] The book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian concerning the kingdoms and marvels of the East. Newly translated and edited, with notes. By Colonel Sir Henry Yule ... With maps and other illustrations. London: John Murray, 1871.
$1,500
First edition, 2 volumes, 8vo, pp. clxi, [1], 409, [1]; xviii, [2], 525, [1]; large folding color lithograph in pocket inside upper cover ('The Ruc's Egg'), 2 folding facsimiles (one of Marco Polo's last will), double-page facsimile from the Mongol era, facsimile of handwriting from the Crusca MS., tinted folding lithograph of Marco Polo's own geography, 11 maps (2 folding, some printed in color), 1 map of Peking with overlay, 1 chromolithograph, 2 plates of banknotes, plus numerous text maps and illustrations throughout (some full-page); original green cloth stamped in gilt on upper covers and spines, both volumes rebacked with the original spines laid down, endpapers renewed; with the rebacking, the set is sound and internally clean.
Inscribed on a flyleaf in volume I: "From the author."
Yule's great contribution was in clarifying Polo's routes by identifying and matching the medieval geographic place names used by Polo and his transcribers, with their actual present-day locations and names.
18. A course of Mandarin lessons, based on idiom.. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1916.
$375
Abridged edition, 4to, pp. [2], xi, [1], 299, [1]; original printed wrappers backed in black cloth; nibbling to lower corner on first 10 leaves plus some spotting, corners bumped, contemporary library stamp and owner's signature of G. P. Foster on title page, text clean, good.
First published in 1892, this edition was shrunk to 100 lessons for the benefit of "busy modern workers." Mateer was founder of Tengchow College, considered the first modern college in China.
19. Geology of the Nepal Himalayas. Sapporo: Himalayan Committee of Hokkaido University, 1973.
$100
4to, pp. xvi, 286; maps and charts in text, 17 folding maps and charts; four large folding maps and charts in pocket (lacking the fifth map); original wrappers bound in library card and backed in cloth, later paper labels; corners bumped, text clean and sound, very good.
20. [Roerich, Nicolas.] Развенчанный Тибет : Северная и Внытренняя Монголия, Центральная Гоби, Цайдам, Чантанг и снеговые хребты Тибета, с фотографическими снимками из материалов Миссии : 1928 / Razvenchannyi Tibet ... [= Tibet exposed: Northern and Inner Mongolia, Central Gobi, Tsaidam, Changthang and the snowy ridges of Tibet, with photographs from the mission]. [Magnitogorsk: Amrita-Ural, 1996].
$200
Large 8vo, pp. 730, [6]; text in Russian; decorated margins, text illustrations; full red cloth gilt; touch of bumping to corners and minor foxing to fore-edge, one short closed tear to a text leaf, not affecting text, near fine.
Nicolas Roerich (1874-1947) was a Russian artist, author, and archaeologist. He and his wife became deeply engaged in Theosophy and Asian mysticism. In 1925 he set off for inner Asia to "act as an embassy of Western Buddhism to Tibet," but he also played a small part in the Great Game between the British and Russian empires in scouting the region. Ryabinin accompanied Roerich as a party doctor. His diary from the trip was discovered in 1992 and this is its first publication. "The diaries contain a lot of unique information of a geographical nature, about the flora and fauna of this high-mountain region, about the beliefs, customs and superstitions of the Tibetans and other peoples."
21. Escudos de armas e inscripciones antiguas de la cuidad de Tunja. [Bogota: Cooperativa Nacional de Artes Graficas, 1939].
$160
8vo, pp. 197, [1]; three color plates, tipped in illustrations; printed paper wrappers; wrappers soiled and a little edgeworn, textblock evenly toned, inscribed on first leaf by Rojas to Calixto Torres Umana, father of Columbian pediatrics.
22. Sikkim Darbar Gazette. June 1969 - May, 1971. Gangtok: published by authority, [T. T. Bhutia, publisher], 1969-1971.
$1,500
Folio (approx. 13" x 8"), 24 issues of the Gazette, vol. XIX, no. 1 (June 1969) to vol. xx, no. 12 (May 1971), all on hand-made paper; together with: 49 issues of the "Extraordinary" supplement (mostly) on machine-made paper, nos. 1 - 36 (June 1969 - May 1970); and nos. 1 - 13 (June 1970 - May 1971); the Gazette generally 6-8 pages each; the "Extraordinary" generally 2-8 pages each. Contemporary half calf, lettered direct in black on spine; Library of Congress duplicate, with bookplate and rubberstamp on endpapers (released as "surplus duplicate.")
Contains regular sections on "Notifications regarding appointments, postings, transfers," "Rules, orders, press notes," "Advertisements and notices by government departments, and the public," plus special sections on taxes for Indian liquors, nationalized transport fares and freights, the Sikkim Polic Act of 1969, and other municipal matters.
The Kingdom of Sikkim was located in the Himalayas between India and China. In 1975, after a referendum to abolish the monarchy, and the passing of the 36th amendment to the Indian constitution, the monarchy was abolished, along with the State Council. The territory of the kingdom was merged with India, becoming its 22nd state. This Gazette and its Extraordinary Supplement, were organs of the government prior to Sikkim's absorption into India.
23. A dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms with Sanskrit and English equivalents and a Sanskrit-Pali index. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd, 1937.
$200
First edition, 4to, pp. xviii, 510, [2]; lexicon in double column; original brown cloth, gilt title on spine, speckled edges; boards lightly soiled, one square inch chip to upper joint, ownership signature of "Dr. Ralph Sell, #2 Fushan Rd. Tsingtao" on free endpaper, with neat pencil annotations in margins, a couple leaves dogeared, very good.
24. The order of the Buddhist high mass. With an introduction by Dr. Paul Carus [cover title]. The Buddhist service consisting of mass, vespers, benediction. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1913.
$100
First separate edition; 7¾" x 5½", pp. 35, [1]; frontispiece portrait, 1 plate, printed music; very good, clean and sound in original pictorial brown wrappers printed in red and blue.
Reprinted from the Open Court issue for February, 1912.
OCLC locates San Diego State, Southern Illinois, and the BL only.
25. The Himalaya Mountains and surrounding regions. London: Sifton, Praed & Co. Ltd., The Map House, 1919.
$4,500
Sectional map in 4 parts, overall approx. 57" x 38", each mounted on linen, each approx. 19" x 26", each folding down into marbled wrappers, and each with a printed paper label on the upper cover; the marbled wrappers are rubbed and there are a few tiny breaks at the folds
"Heliozinographed at the Survey of India Offices, Dehra Dun." Includes Nepal, Sikkim, Ladakh, Mandi, Changtang, Lahul, Karakoram Range, Arkatagh. Published under the direction of C. H. D. Ryder, Surveyor General of India.
26. Dictionnaire géographique de l'Asie Centrale offrant par ordre alphabétique, les transcriptions, en caractères mandchoux et chinois, des noms géographiques donnés en langue nationale de chaque contrée, accompagnée de notices extraites ou tr. des ouvrages chinois et autres ouvrages originaux de l'Orient musulman ... prolégomène, pays en dehors de la domination chinois. [Part I - all published - Description du khanat de Khôkand (Turkestan)]. Paris: Maisonneuve & cie, 1869.
$850
First edition, folio, pp. [6], 51, [3]; original green printed wrappers bound in (front wrapper stained); printed entirely by lithography; very good, sound and clean in modern green cloth, gilt-lettered on upper cover.
Thonnelier (d. 1879?) was a French Oriental private scholar, a member of Société Asiatique and Sociéte del’histoire de France. Several literary plans remained unfinished (this work included) at his sudden death.
In French, with names also appearing in Chinese and Tataric, the latter written in Arabic script.