[Rarebooks] fa: ACCOUNT OF THE EMBASSY TO THE EMPEROR OF CHINA - Sir George Staunton - 1797

[ArCh]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, April 1 (no fooling). Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y7slcg7s

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Sir George Staunton (ed.): An Historical Account of the Embassy to the Emperor of China, Undertaken by Order of the King of Great Britain; Including the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants; Abridged principally from the Papers of Earl Macartney, as compiled by Sir George Staunton, Bart. London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1797. FIRST EDITION; 8vo (21.5 cm) in early half calf and marbled boards with modern gilt-lettered spine label; xv, [1], 475, [3] pp.; last leaf with directions to the binder (recto) and publisher’s advert (verso); with an extra engraved frontispiece, 22 copper-engraved plate leaves (some with multiple images), and 2 folding maps (complete as per binder’s directions). ESTC T147859.

First edition of Staunton’s abridgment, issued in the same year as the full official account and preceding the latter’s atlas volume. Sir George Staunton (1737-1801) served as secretary to Macartney’s ultimately unsuccessful mission to establish diplomatic and commercial relations with China. Binding with fairly modest rubbing and bumping to the corners, some chips and creases to one edge of the front board’s marbled paper; occasional spotting and light browning to the plates, mostly relegated to the margins; two early prefatory text leaves with stains from something previously laid in, occasional light toning and spots to the text elsewhere, but generally quite clean and sound, firmly bound. A solid copy.