[Rarebooks] fa: [CHINA, KARAKORUM &c.] Abel-Remusat LA GEOGRAPHIE DE l’ASIE CENTRALE 1825 w/ MAP

[ArCh]

Listed now, auctions ending MONDAY, April 22. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y3tbxvzl

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

[Jean-Pierre] Abel-Remusat: Memoires sur Plusieurs Questions relatives a la Geographie de l'Asie Centrale. Paris: de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1825. First edition thus. Quarto (27 cm), untrimmed in early/original blue wrappers, rebacked; [2], 129, [1] pp.; with a folding map.

Scarce work by the pioneering French sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Remusat (1788-1832), the first professor of Chinese at the College de France. WorldCat locates only two copies in the U.S. (Yale, Cornell) and one in UK (British Library). The volume consists of two lengthy essays, Recherches sur la ville de Kara-Koroum (i.e., Karakorum, the fabled and short-lived capital of the Mongol empire) and Remarques sur l'extension de l'empire Chinois du cote de l'Occident. Bound in at the rear is a folding lithographed "Carte du Grand Desert et des Pays voisins, tiree du Sou-houng-Kian-lou" (Map of the Great Desert and surrounding countries, taken from the Sou Houng Kian Lou).

Binding a little tender but secure; generally mild toning to the leaves, a bit darker on some of the later leaves; the last thirty leaves and the folding map with what appears to be a bite out of the top margin, not affecting the text or the map itself; else quite clean and fresh.