An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations -
Adam Smith, J. R. McCulloch
1863 - Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh - New Edition, Revised, Corrected, and Improved
A finely bound McCulloch edition illustrated with two full page engraved plates. Published a year before McCulloch’s death, revised to include additional notes on the abolition of the corn laws, important changes in British commercial policy introduced by Sir Robert Peel, and ‘the unfortunate contest that is now being carried on with so much bitterness in the United States’. With McCulloch’s ‘Sketch of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, and his ‘Introductory Discourse’.
First ‘published in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence it has been argued that the global effect of Smith’s work has exceeded that of American constitutionalists. And if the wealth of a nation or a people is the foundation of all else, then from Hong Kong and Shanghai to Peru, from the oil and gas fields of Russia to the United States itself, from Estonia to Australia, it can be claimed that the principles and economic dynamics at work in all these places come from a book by a scholar of Scotland published before the French Revolution, before the Industrial Revolution and eighty four years before Das Kapital by Karl Marx.’ - Melvyn Bragg – 12 Books That Changed the World.
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Price HK$ 5,500
1863 - Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh - New Edition, Revised, Corrected, and Improved
A finely bound McCulloch edition illustrated with two full page engraved plates. Published a year before McCulloch’s death, revised to include additional notes on the abolition of the corn laws, important changes in British commercial policy introduced by Sir Robert Peel, and ‘the unfortunate contest that is now being carried on with so much bitterness in the United States’. With McCulloch’s ‘Sketch of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, and his ‘Introductory Discourse’. First ‘published in the same year as the American Declaration of Independence it has been argued that the global effect of Smith’s work has exceeded that of American constitutionalists. And if the wealth of a nation or a people is the foundation of all else, then from Hong Kong and Shanghai to Peru, from the oil and gas fields of Russia to the United States itself, from Estonia to Australia, it can be claimed that the principles and economic dynamics at work in all these places come from a book by a scholar of Scotland published before the French Revolution, before the Industrial Revolution and eighty four years before Das Kapital by Karl Marx.’ - Melvyn Bragg – 12 Books That Changed the World.
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Price HK$ 5,500
East of Eden -
John Steinbeck
1952 - The Viking Press, New York - First Trade Edition, First Issue
Steinbeck ‘considered Eden to be his magnum opus, the crowning achievement of his life's work.
‘The subject is the only one man has ever used as his theme - the existence, the balance, the battle, and the victory in the permanent war between wisdom and ignorance, light and darkness - good and evil.’
‘I have written each book as an exercise, as practice for the one to come. And this is the one to come. There is nothing beyond this book-nothing follows it. It must contain all in the world I know and it must have everything in it of which I am capable’.
- John Steinbeck writing to his editor and publisher Pat Covici, The East of Eden Letters.
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Price HK$ 15,000
1952 - The Viking Press, New York - First Trade Edition, First Issue
Steinbeck ‘considered Eden to be his magnum opus, the crowning achievement of his life's work. ‘The subject is the only one man has ever used as his theme - the existence, the balance, the battle, and the victory in the permanent war between wisdom and ignorance, light and darkness - good and evil.’
‘I have written each book as an exercise, as practice for the one to come. And this is the one to come. There is nothing beyond this book-nothing follows it. It must contain all in the world I know and it must have everything in it of which I am capable’.
- John Steinbeck writing to his editor and publisher Pat Covici, The East of Eden Letters.
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Price HK$ 15,000
The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon - Signed & Inscribed -
Au-Young Sum Nung
1938 - March & Greenwood, New York - Number 73 of 350 numbered copies
Inscribed ‘With the best wishes of the author’ and signed in both English and Chinese.
A rare copy of Au-Young’s poem, with an introductory note. The front title page illustrated in silver, the remaining leaves lettered in red, all housed in yellow-gold silk covers bound in the traditional Chinese stitched accordion style.
Au-Young (1893-1942) was a Chinese diplomat, poet, and philosopher, educated in China, and then George Washington University and Columbia. After graduating he moved to Shanghai to practice law and then enter the diplomatic service, after which he emigrated to the U. S. founding the School of Chinese Philosophy and Cultural Studies in New York City.
In 1918 George Washington University’s magazine Cherry Tree wrote that ‘Sum Nung Au-Young is one of our illustrious students from the Far East who has absorbed all the knowledge in the Political Science Courses and is going back to China to run the country.’
The book is dedicated to Ruth St. Denis ‘Symbol of Rhythm and Grace’, famous American dancer and choreographer, who followed various Oriental doctrines and founded the ‘Society of Spiritual Arts’. In 1934 she began an affair with the young Au-Young who taught her the rudiments of Taoism.
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Price HK$ 3,000
1938 - March & Greenwood, New York - Number 73 of 350 numbered copies
Inscribed ‘With the best wishes of the author’ and signed in both English and Chinese.A rare copy of Au-Young’s poem, with an introductory note. The front title page illustrated in silver, the remaining leaves lettered in red, all housed in yellow-gold silk covers bound in the traditional Chinese stitched accordion style.
Au-Young (1893-1942) was a Chinese diplomat, poet, and philosopher, educated in China, and then George Washington University and Columbia. After graduating he moved to Shanghai to practice law and then enter the diplomatic service, after which he emigrated to the U. S. founding the School of Chinese Philosophy and Cultural Studies in New York City.
In 1918 George Washington University’s magazine Cherry Tree wrote that ‘Sum Nung Au-Young is one of our illustrious students from the Far East who has absorbed all the knowledge in the Political Science Courses and is going back to China to run the country.’
The book is dedicated to Ruth St. Denis ‘Symbol of Rhythm and Grace’, famous American dancer and choreographer, who followed various Oriental doctrines and founded the ‘Society of Spiritual Arts’. In 1934 she began an affair with the young Au-Young who taught her the rudiments of Taoism.
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Price HK$ 3,000
The Rolling Pearl - Signed & Inscribed -
Au-Young Sum Nung, Edwin Markham
1930 - March & Greenwood, New York - First and Limited Edition
Inscribed ‘With the best wishes of the author’ and signed in both English and Chinese.
A rare collection of Au-Young’s poems, with an introductory note by the American poet Edwin Markham. With a portrait frontispiece and housed in the delicate silver coated dust jacket. One of a limited number printed.
In the delicate silver coated dust jacket.
With a typed letter to Miss N. Margaret Campbell, of the New York advertising agency Alley Richards & Co., about making a sound film in Chinese, dated February 26, 1941 and signed by Au-Young. Also several other loose typed papers.
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Price HK$ 3,000
1930 - March & Greenwood, New York - First and Limited Edition
Inscribed ‘With the best wishes of the author’ and signed in both English and Chinese.A rare collection of Au-Young’s poems, with an introductory note by the American poet Edwin Markham. With a portrait frontispiece and housed in the delicate silver coated dust jacket. One of a limited number printed.
In the delicate silver coated dust jacket.
With a typed letter to Miss N. Margaret Campbell, of the New York advertising agency Alley Richards & Co., about making a sound film in Chinese, dated February 26, 1941 and signed by Au-Young. Also several other loose typed papers.
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Price HK$ 3,000
Mary Poppins -
P. L. Travers, Mary Shepard (illustrator)
1934 - Gerald Howe Ltd, London - First Edition
‘If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.’
The first appearance of the legendary Mary Poppins, finely bound and magically illustrated throughout.
‘Mary Poppins was very vain and liked to look her best. Indeed, she was quite sure that she never looked anything else.’
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Price HK$ 6,000
1934 - Gerald Howe Ltd, London - First Edition
‘If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.’The first appearance of the legendary Mary Poppins, finely bound and magically illustrated throughout.
‘Mary Poppins was very vain and liked to look her best. Indeed, she was quite sure that she never looked anything else.’
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Price HK$ 6,000
The Haunted Monastery -
Robert H. Van Gulik
1963 - Heinemann, London - First English Edition (First published by Art Printing Works, Kuala Lumpur, 1961)
A superb copy of the seventh book in the Judge Dee series, and chronologically eighth tale, being set in China 677 AD.
With eight illustrations and one plan from woodblock prints by Van Gulik in Chinese style, and endpapers illustrated with a Sketch Map of the Monastery.
‘Judge Dee and his entourage, seeking refuge from a mountain storm, become trapped in a Taoist monastery, where the Abbott Jade mysteriously dies after delivering an ecstatic sermon. The monks call it a supernatural experience, but the judge calls it murder’
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Price HK$ 3,200
1963 - Heinemann, London - First English Edition (First published by Art Printing Works, Kuala Lumpur, 1961)
A superb copy of the seventh book in the Judge Dee series, and chronologically eighth tale, being set in China 677 AD.With eight illustrations and one plan from woodblock prints by Van Gulik in Chinese style, and endpapers illustrated with a Sketch Map of the Monastery.
‘Judge Dee and his entourage, seeking refuge from a mountain storm, become trapped in a Taoist monastery, where the Abbott Jade mysteriously dies after delivering an ecstatic sermon. The monks call it a supernatural experience, but the judge calls it murder’
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Price HK$ 3,200