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The Painted Veil - William Somerset Maugham

1924 - George H. Doran Company, New York - First Edition
A fine first edition in a fine and elusive dust jacket.

Adultery and betrayal set in Hong Kong and then against a backdrop of a cholera epidemic in 1920s China.

She was a fool and he knew it and because he loved her it had made no difference'.

The basis for the 2004 film starring Edward Norton, Naomi Watts and Toby Jones.

The first edition, published in New York, with all the references to Hong Kong, which were quickly removed or edited by the London publisher due to numerous threats of legal lawsuits.
 
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Price HK$ 80,000



Ah King - Six Stories - William Somerset Maugham

1933 - William Heinemann Ltd., London - First Edition
‘But human beings are incalculable and he is a fool who tells himself that he knows what a man is capable of.’

A fine first edition of this compilation of six short stories which, as Maugham explained in the preface, revolve around Ah King, a Chinese boy that he had as a servant to look after him during his trip to Borneo, Indo-China and Siam. It is to be a commemoration for the emotion that Ah King, who otherwise was placid and indifferent, showed when they were to part. The stories were set in places in which the two travelled together.
 
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Price HK$ 6,000



On a Chinese Screen - William Somerset Maugham

1922 - William Heinemann, London - First English Edition
First edition of Maugham’s collection of sketches on China.

Maugham spent the winter months of 1919 travelling fifteen hundred miles up the Yangtze river, with what are clearly long stops in Shanghai and Hong Kong amongst other treaty ports. Always more interested in people than places, he noted down acute and finely crafted sketches of those he met on countless scraps of paper.

In the resulting collection we encounter Western missionaries, army officers and company managers who are culturally out of their depth in the immensity of the Chinese civilisation. Maugham keenly observes, and gently ridicules, their dogged and oblivious persistence with the life they know. In total 58 sketches.
 
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Price HK$ 15,000



The Casuarina Tree - Six Stories - William Somerset Maugham

1926 - William Heinemann Ltd., London - First Edition
First edition in the scarce dust jacket designed by Ralph Keene

Maugham’s collection of short stories by set in the Federated Malay States during the 1920s, including one of his most aclaimed ‘The Outsider’.

by W. Somerset Maugham. The stories are loosely based on Maugham's experiences traveling in the region for about a year

With a short introduction entitled ‘
The Casuarina Tree’ followed by the stories – ‘Before the Party’, ‘P. & O.’, ‘The Outstation’, ‘The Force of Circumstance’, ‘The Yellow Streak’, and ‘The Letter’. 
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Price HK$ 40,000



Shanghai Paper Hunt Club - A Short Resume of the Season 1929-1930. - Major E. H. McMichael

1930 - North-China Daily News &, Shanghai - First and Only Edition
An extremely rare and fine little one-off production, only printed for this particular season. As explained in the foreword ‘For certain reasons it was deemed undesirable to publish the accounts of the past Season’s Hunts in the daily press, but in order that a complete record of the sport during 1929-30 might be preserved for future reference, the Stewards considered that it would be much appreciated, both by members and friends, if some account of the Hunts held could be published in pamphlet form.’ Why it was ‘deemed undesirable’ they do not explain.

A fine copy illustrated with 20 photographs and two sketches. The resume covers nine Paper Hunts and three Handicap races from November 24th, 1929 to February 23rd, 1930. With a list of events for the Shanghai Hounds’ Drag Hunts Season of 1929-30 to the rear.
 
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Price HK$ 9,000



The Grandeur of the Gorges - Donald Mennie

1926 - A. S. Watson &, Shanghai - First Edition, number 699 of 1, 000 numbered copies.
A fine first edition of this important work containing twelve hand-tinted gelatin silver prints and thirty eight photogravures [15x21cm], each tipped-in from photographs taken by Donald Mennie. Enhanced with pen and ink sketches by Lt.Col. H. G. Gandy and descriptive notes by Lieut.-Comdr. H. Foote Carey opposite each plate. Introduction by Marc T. Greene, and preface by Mennie.

Mennie “took the pictures during two trips on the upper Yangtze River in China: the first on a steamer from Ichang to Chungking, during poor weather, and the second between Ichang and Wan Hsien. The book ends at Chungking, “the great metropolis of Western China”, 1,400 miles from the sea. His apocalyptic vision of the city is seen across the 700 yard stretch of turbulent water where the current was so strong it could take an hour to cross. Between the angry, storm filled sky, and the reflecting, threatening water, the scale of the city is compacted into a strange and ominous shape.” [National Galleries of Scotland]
 
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Price HK$ 16,000



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



 
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