Results 33 - 40 of 54 results

Eighteen views taken at & near Rangoon [Views in the Birman Empire] - with - Rangoon Views and Combined Operations in the Birman Empire - Lieutenant Joseph Moore, Captain Frederick Marryat

October 1825 - January 1826 - Kingsbury &, London - First Editions
A rare set of these twenty three hand-coloured aquatint plates from the first and second series, exceptionally bright colours. Together with the engraved allegorical title-dedication leaf for the ‘Eighteen Views’ [First Series] by R. W. Smart after Thomas Stothard, the aquatint leaf listing the eight most important subscribers with large vignette by J. Bromley after Thomas Stothard, and six page lithographed list of subscribers in England and India.

These aquatint plates, published during the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-1826, concentrate on Rangoon, captured by the British in 1824. In the subject matter of the plates there is an interesting comparison between graphic battle scenes and picturesque views of the Burmese countryside and architecture. Although Moore wished to record the details of the battles he was involved in, he also wanted to depict the pagodas, temples and views around Rangoon.

A complete set of the first series of eighteen plates from drawings by Lieutenant Joseph Moore, together with five plates from the second series from original sketches by Captain Marryat, which were published eight months later.

With rather fabulous provenance, coming from the Honourable East India Company’s East India College Library (with their armourial bookplate), which was founded in 1806. The ‘
Eighteen Views’ are dedicated to the Court of Directors of the East India Company. The contemporary binding is by Stephen Austin of Hertford, Stephen Austin had been associated with the East India College since boyhood. When it closed in 1858 he was a leading member of the group which set up the public school in William Wilkins’s classical buildings at Hertford Heath.

Plate 16, in first state with ‘ajacent’ (corrected to adjacent in the second state), and plate 14 of the first series and plates 1, 2, & 3 of the second series marked ‘Proof’. The Abbey catalogue notes that ‘... it does not seem that the appearance or non-appearance of the word 'Proof' can be made into an issue point, and, in fact, it seems that all the plate differences must be ascribed to states, not issues’.
 
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Price HK$ 135,000



Soochow: The Garden City - F. R. Nance

1936 - Kelly &, Shanghai - First Edition
A fine and exemplary example of this beautifully illustrated guide to the ‘Garden City’.

With twenty four black and white photographic plates of photographs by H. C. Wong and four folding maps, as well as a
Map of the Waterways Around Soochow highlighted in green and used as endpapers.

Florence Rush Nance (1875-1940) was an American teacher of mathematics and chemistry at the McTyeire School for Young Ladies in Shanghai (now the Shanghai No. 3 Girls' High School). She was the first woman to receive a degree in science from Vanderbilt. Nance also taught at Soochow University where her husband was President.
 
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Price HK$ 6,000



An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China - Johan Nieuhoff, John Ogilby

1669 - Printed by John Macock for the Author, London - First Edition in English
One of the great 17th century works on China, translated and published by John Ogilby, noteworthy not only for the text, bringing notice of the mysteries of the East to English readers, but for the magnificent engraved illustrations and plates.

In contemporary full calf and profusely illustrated throughout with portrait frontispiece, added pictorial title-page (signed in the plate by Wenceslaus Hollar), double page map of China, 17 copper-engraved plates (on 16 pages); double-page plan of Canton; 120 copper-engravings in the text; and numerous decorative motifs.
 
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Price HK$ 125,000



Up the Yang-Tse. With Sketch Maps - E. H. Parker, Formerly H.B.M. Consul, Hoihow.

1899 - Kelly &, Shanghai - Second Edition
A rare and fine example of this detailed and descriptive account of a journey taken by the sinologist, diplomat and barrister Edward Harper Parker. His observant narrative ranges from opium, trafficking of women, infanticide, and bribery to the silk trade, farming, local customs and beliefs.

Illustrated with eight sketch maps (seven of which are folding).
 
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Price HK$ 12,000



Antiquarian, Architectural, and Landscape Illustrations of the History of Java - Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

1844 - Henry G. Bohn, London - First Thus
Magnificent large quarto volume of illustrations with great provenance, formerly from the library of Admiral Sir James Gordon (1782-1869) who served as a Midshipman under Admiral Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, and went on to command ships during the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars. He eventually attained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, and is considered to be one of the main inspirations for C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower, alongside Thomas Cochrane, George Cockburn and others.

This separate volume of topographical, archaeological, linguistic and anthropological plates was published in 1844 to accompany the 1830 second edition of Sir Stamford Raffles’ landmark work ‘
The History of Java’, including twenty four additional plates not found in the first edition of 1817.

With 92 illustrated plates, including 10 fine hand-coloured aquatints and a very large folding map. No text. In the publisher’s original gilt and red cloth binding.
 
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Price HK$ 18,000



Mountain Monarchs : Wild Sheep & Goats of the Himalayas - George B. Schaller

1977 - University of Chicago Press, Chicago - First Edition
First edition in elusive dust jacket. The first detailed behavioural study of mountain ungulates in a little studied region - the Himalaya. Illustrated throughout.

In 1968, the intrepid George Schaller began a three year study in the vast mountainous and forested regions of Central and Southern Asia, focusing his research on six species of wild sheep and goat – Punjab urial, Persian wild goat, markhor, Himalayan tahr, Nilgiri tahr, and bharal, or blue sheep.

During part of his travels through the Himalayas to study the bharal, or blue sheep, and to possibly to catch a glimpse of the rare and elusive snow leopard, Schaller was accompanied by writer Peter Matthiessen, who would later write his own account of the journey in his award-winning book,
The Snow Leopard, referring to Schaller throughout the work as ‘GS’.

Schaller is indeed one of only two Westerners known to have seen a snow leopard in Nepal between 1950 and 1978.
 
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Price HK$ 1,800



Maskee - A Shanghai Sketchbook by Schiff - Signed - Friedrich Schiff

Circa 1938Shanghai - First Edition. Number B310 of an unspecified Limited Edition
Fabulously Shanghai Art-Deco 15 foot long accordion folio in original silk covers, folding out to show 21 illustrated panels each hand-coloured by Schiff. Each panel depicting a view of 1930’s expatriate life in Shanghai through the unique eyes of Schiff. More a folio of art-deco artwork than a book, although many of the panels include amusing comments and rhymes for example:

Miss Shanghai
Me No Worry– Me No Care!
Me Go Marry Millionaire!
If He Die – Me No Cry!
Me Go Marry Other Guy!!

Signed to the first panel by Friedrich Schiff (1908-68), an Austrian Jewish artist who moved to Shanghai in 1930 after an invite to visit from a cousin and lived there for 17 years. He had worked as a newspaper cartoonist in Vienna and continued this line of work in Shanghai, soon becoming famous for his amusing caricatures of the city's inhabitants. Prolific, Schiff’s cartoons appeared in books, newspapers, magazines and advertisements throughout China and the Far East, and collaborations with Ellen Thorbecke (
Peking Studies; People in China; Hong Kong; and Shanghai). 
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Price HK$ 22,000



Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula - Walter William Skeat, Charles Otto Blagden

1906 - Macmillan &, London - First Edition
A large and comprehensive two volume ethnographic study on the manners, customs, religion, and language of the peoples of the Malay Peninsula.

Profusely illustrated. Skeats adds a bibliography of most of the early literature, consisting of mainly travelogues and reports by colonial administrators and a few scholarly journal articles.

‘Skeat went to much trouble to obtain a large and comprehensive collection of photographs for use as illustrations, which are an excellent record of aboriginal life in his time. He also wrote an Introduction entitled '
Environment', which is a first-rate description of the Malayan jungle and its flora and fauna as a habitat, and he also included a bibliography which, among other things, takes in the work of continental scholars of his day on Malayan aborigines.’ - [J.M. Gullick, The Skeat Collection, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford] 
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Price HK$ 3,800



 
Results 33 - 40 of 54 results