Results 49 - 54 of 54 results

The Traveller in Asia - Priscilla Wakefield

1817 - Darton, London - First Edition
This lovely little book is the final title of Priscilla Wakefield’s fictional travel series, for the purpose of educating children, and based upon the narrative of Arthur Middleton. Illustrated with a colour folding map.

‘In the book Arthur Middleton travels around India and visits China with his impressions and experiences recorded in a journal format. He makes an acquaintance with a Mr Melville who accompanies him on part of the journey and asks Arthur to take charge of his nephew Charles Melville who is fourteen. Arthur and his new companion Charles continue the journey and Priscilla begins to include into the text letters from Charles to his sister Adele. The visit to China at the end of the book is brief in comparison to the volume of information about India. At the end of the book Arthur returns Charles to his uncle and plans his return to England.’ -
Priscilla Wakefield., Travels in Juvenile Literature (Blog). 
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Price HK$ 3,000



Shadow Plays of Peking - Wang Hsun, Lu Ching Ta (Lu Jing Da)

1953 - People's Fine Arts Publishing House, Peking - First Edition
A large (52 x 38 cm) and rare silk bound and tied folio, presenting the history of Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) shadow play, with 15 stunning full page colour lithographs of Chinese shadow puppets by Lu Ching-ta, and an introduction by Wang Hsu, text in Chinese, together with loose eight page pamphlet giving the title and full introduction in English, and detailed description of each illustration, and in the original dust jacket.

Edited by the Department of Applied Arts, Central Institute of Fine Arts, Beijing.
 
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Price HK$ 13,000



Mono-Alu Folklore (Bougainville Strait, Western Solomon Islands) - Gerald Camden Wheeler

1926 - George Routledge &, London - First Edition
The collection of Tales and Song Texts here given was made during a stay in Alu and Mono, Bougainville Strait, Western Solomon Islands in 1908-9 for ethnological research. Most of them were taken down from the dictation of the Mono-Alu man Bitiai, a blind man, son of the late chief Big Gorai. The song texts were given from dictation without the music. In the case of eight of the tales, the author had no Mono text. Many of the tales though gathered by Wheeler in Alu or in Mono, come from outside the islands in the Bougainville Strait, from Buim (South Bougainville). Mono is known as Treasure Island, Alu as Shorthand Island; with Fauru they may be grouped as the islands of the Bougainville Strait. - From the introduction. 
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Price HK$ 1,200



Exploration of Mount Kina Balu, North Borneo - John Whitehead

1893 - Gurney and Jackson, London - First Edition
A beautiful copy of this stunningly illustrated and unsurpassed large folio containing 32 lithographed plates, comprising 11 natural history plates, hand-coloured and heightened with gum arabic, and 21 tinted lithographed views and ethnographic subjects, and with map and an additional 21 woodcut illustrations in the text.

A detailed narrative of John Whitehead's (1860-1899) travels from October 1884 to August 1888 in Borneo, Java, Palawan and Balabac Islands, especially of his three efforts (the last one successful) to ascend Mount Kina Balu. He brought back examples of many new animals, including no fewer than forty-five new species of birds. The author's primary interest was ornithology, but he also provides much information on head-hunting, religion and custom of the peoples of the region. Besides visiting North Borneo he spent several months in Java and Palawan, and made an expedition into the state of Malacca.
 
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Price HK$ 40,000



Easy Lessons in Chinese: or Progressive Exercises to Facilitate the Study of that Language, especially Adapted to the Canton Dialect - Samuel Wells Williams

1842 - Printed at the Office of the Chinese Repository, Macao - First Edition
A finely bound fiirst edition of Samuel Wells Williams’ rare ‘Easy Lessons in Chinese’. The great missionary and sinologists first published work on the Chinese language.

Illustrated with frontispiece, a folding table of characters, and the occasional vignette, in addition to numerous tables of Chinese characters and examples of Chinese text.
 
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Price HK$ 38,000



A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, Performed in the Years 1796, 1797, 1798, - Captain James Wilson, Wlliam Wilson, James Morrison, Samuel Greatheed

1799 - Printed for T. Chapman by T. Gillet, London - First Edition [The Gillet Edition]
Account of the first missionary voyage to the South Seas, and an important work in relation to Australia as well. A large quarto volume with six engraved plates and seven folding engraved maps, in contemporary binding.

‘The London Missionary Society was founded in 1795, mainly to send missions to Polynesia. The voyage of the
Duff was undertaken for the purpose of establishing a mission in Tahiti, and a settlement of twenty-five persons was formed. Apart from the missionary interest of this account, the voyagers made many important discoveries of islands, including Timoe, Mangareva, and Pakarua in the Tuamoto Archipelago; Ongea and Fulanga Islands; Vanua Mbalavu, and Satawal, Lamotrek, Elato, Ifalik, and Woleai atolls in the Western Carolines, before putting in at Macao. A new group of islands, named the Duff Group, was discovered among the Santa Cruz Islands. On the outward voyage, the expedition visited Rio de Janeiro.

The narrative is fresh, although sometimes naive, and provides a glimpse of everyday life on the islands that the mariner or naturalist didn't consider worth reporting.’ -Hill,
Pacific Voyages. 
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Price HK$ 5,800



 
Results 49 - 54 of 54 results