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Vibrant and buzzing, Firsts Hong Kong is the ideal end to another busy year of bookfairs for everyone at Peter Harrington. This year, we have many standout items, including the complete 15th-century edition of Marco Polo’s travels offered for sale for the first time in 30 years, and the landmark first translation into English of the Tao Te Ching.
POLO, Marco. De le maraveliose cose del Mondo.Brescia : 20 December 1500
Second Italian edition, the rarest of all 15th-century editions, one of only five known copies. This is the only copy of this edition, as well as the only complete copy of any incunable edition, recorded in commerce in the past 30 years.
Marco Polo (1254-1324) was born into a prominent Venetian trading family. In 1271, he travelled...Learn More
QUESNAY, François. Despotisme de la Chine.Versailles : 1766
Quesnay's most important work on the theory of good government, one of two known pre-publication manuscript copies of his Despotisme de la Chine, in which he explicitly gives his political theory of enlightened despotism regulated by natural law.
In preparing his account of China, drawing largely on the Mélanges intéressans of Rousselot...Learn More
BARRY, Sir Edward. Observations Historical, Critical, and Medical, on the Wines of the Ancients.London : 1775
First and only edition of the first book in English to discuss modern wines and one of the earliest books to investigate ancient wines. This is a handsome, well-margined copy, with a crisp example of the engraved frontispiece by Isaac Taylor.
In an early example of the time-honoured connection between medical professionals and expensive...Learn More
EGAN, Pierce. Boxiana; or, Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism;London : 1812-24 & [c.1840]
First editions; the superbly illustrated and complete original series of this cornerstone of any library of pugilism, together with the later plate volume of circa 1840. "The publication of Boxiana brought Egan immediate notoriety... His evocative style, reproducing the slang of the boxing community, made the books immensely popular" (Chill, p....Learn More
DAVIS, John Francis. The Fortunate Union, a Romance, Translated from the Chinese Original, with Notes and Illustrations. To Which is Added a Chinese Tragedy.London : 1829
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by Davis on the title page of Volume I, "Emily C. Whiteman, with the Translator's kind regards." The recipient (1838-1871) was the daughter of John Clarmont Whiteman, a Canton merchant and an eventual director of the East India Company. Davis had an equally stellar career, joining the company in 1813 and...Learn More
DAVIS, John Francis. Poeseos Sinensis Commentarii. On the Poetry of the Chinese, (From the Royal Asiatic Transactions) to Which Are Added, Translations & Detached Pieces.Macao : 1834
First Chinese edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the future governor of Hong Kong at the head of the title page, "The Revd. W. Dealtry, D.D., from the author." Dealtry, a fellow of the Royal Society from 1811, joined George Thomas Staunton, Malthus, and eight others in successfully proposing Davis for membership in 1822.
A considered...Learn More
THOM, Robert (trans.). Wang Keaoü Lwan Pih Nëen Chang Han; Or, The lasting resentment of Miss Keaou Lwan Wang, a Chinese Tale: Founded on Fact.Canton : 1838
First edition, inscribed by the author's brother on the title page, "To the Honble. The Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple, from D. Thom, 1848." Robert Thom here translates an autobiographical story, written by the 16th-century poet Wang Jiaoluan, telling of her lover's betrayal and her decision to commit suicide to guarantee his punishment...Learn More
FORBES, James Gibson Thomson. Diary kept while serving as a Royal Navy surgeon, including in the Crimea and China.The Crimea, China, other locations, and at sea : 1849-60
An unpublished and carefully kept eyewitness record of British imperial warfare at its most expansive, encompassing the Crimean War and the Second Opium War. The diaries include a detailed account of the Battle of Balaklava and the Charge of the Light Brigade, together with an extended chronicle of naval and medical service in China and a striking...Learn More
MEDHURST, W. H. Ancient China. The Shoo King, or the Historical Classic:Shanghai : 1846
Rare first edition of the first translation into English of the Book of Documents, one of the Five Confucian Classics. Until the early 20th century, the classics were the cornerstone of Chinese understandings of politics, society, and the self, forming the basis of all scholarly learning and the 2000-year-old imperial examinations...Learn More
THOMS, Peter Perring. A Dissertation on the Ancient Chinese Vases of the Shang Dynasty, from 1743 to 1496, B.C.London : 1851
First edition, presentation copy, with a tipped-in autograph letter signed from the author to the Religious Tract Society, in which he expresses his pleasure "of sending you a copy of my work on the Vases of the Shang Dynasty." With this copy, Thoms also sent the society a printed translation of a recently acquired Chinese document, and this rare...Learn More
DARWIN, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,London : 1859
First edition of "the most influential scientific work of the 19th century" (Horblit), bright and unrestored in the original cloth. The initial 1,250 copies of "the most important biological book ever written" (Freeman) prompted an intellectual revolution comparable to that of Newton or Copernicus.
While recognizable theories of evolution...Learn More
RAWSON, Samuel. Pocket diaries recording five years spent trading in China and his later life in Britain.China and elsewhere : 1860-85
A primary record with significant implications for understanding of Shanghai's early expatriate mercantile community and the impact of the Second Opium War. The diarist, Samuel Rawson, was a member of the powerful Rawson merchant dynasty and one of the most senior British freemasons in China.
Rawson (1819-1893), the grandson of the...Learn More
GRIEVE, Robert. Letters from China to his father in Scotland, transcribed into a letter book.Primarily China : 1861-62
A vivid eyewitness record of the later phase of the Taiping Rebellion, describing the ravages of war and actions fought alongside the Ever Victorious Army. The letters also reflect the uncertainties faced by Victorian men seeking advancement in East Asia.
Robert Grieve (1839-1906), born in the Scottish village of Lilliesleaf and educated at...Learn More
CHINA-US RELATIONS. Treaties between the United States of America and China, Japan, Lewchew and Siam, Acts of Congress, and the Attorney-General's Opinion,Hong Kong : 1862
First edition, otherwise untraced in commerce, with the bookplate of Warren Delano, FDR's grandfather and a mainstay of the illegal opium trade. Delano (1809-1898) made his fortune as an agent of Russell & Co. in Hong Kong and retired to a lavish residence, adorned with Chinese curios and furniture, in upstate New York.
Delano arrived in...Learn More
LAOZI - CHALMERS, John (trans.). The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality, of "The Old Philosopher," Lau-Tsze, Translated from the Chinese, With an Introduction.London : 1868
First edition. Chalmers's translation established a framework for the dozens of translations into English that have appeared over the last 150 years, and in the last three decades only one other copy has appeared in commerce. This copy has the bookplate of the Serbian philosopher Dimitrije Mitrinović, whose universalism blended Asian philosophy...Learn More
TWAIN, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.New York : 1885
First US edition, in the publisher's deluxe half morocco binding, one of 500 copies bound as such.
Less than two weeks before publication, the publisher Webster announced that he was binding 20,000 copies in cloth, another 2,500 in sheep, and 500 copies in half morocco. Webster's own copy, also half morocco, was dated by him as having been...Learn More
DODD, John. Journal of a Blockaded Resident in North Formosa, During the Franco-Chinese War, 1884-5.Hong Kong : 1888
First edition, association copy, with the ownership initials of George Leslie Mackay, the most consequential Western missionary to Taiwan in the 19th century. The author, a merchant sometimes called the "father of Taiwanese tea", was a witness at Mackay's wedding and, during the Franco-Chinese War, the two men were stranded together in Tamsui....Learn More
DE SALIS, William Andrew Salius Fane. Reminiscences of Travel in China and India in 1848.London : 1892
First edition, printed for private circulation only, together with the rare supplement and a loosely inserted 1949 manuscript note from John Fane de Salis (1897-1973), the author's great-nephew, sending the book to "Rodolph", almost certainly his cousin, Captain Rodolph Henry Fane de Salis (1890-1972).
A lawyer by training, De Salis...Learn More
EAST, Frederick J. A Shooting Picnic in China and the Result Thereof.Hong Kong : 1893
First edition, the author's retained copy, inscribed "author's copy" on the first blank. This scarce Hong Kong imprint, describing a five-man jaunt to Qianshan near Macao, is unrecorded institutionally, and we have traced only one other copy in commerce.
Little information on East survives, except that he worked for the merchant outfit...Learn More
KELMSCOTT PRESS: LULL, Ramon. The Order of Chivalry.Hammersmith : 1893
First Kelmscott edition, presentation copy, inscribed by Morris on the second blank three days before publication, "To Edward Burne-Jones from William Morris, April 9th 1893". Burne-Jones's book label, printed in Morris's Golden type, is on the front pastedown. This is one of 225 copies printed on paper; there were also 10 on...Learn More
