Seaports of the Far East. Historical and Descriptive, Commercial and Industrial, Facts, Figures, & Resources. - Allister Macmillan (compiled and Edited by)

1925 - W. H. &, London - Second Edition
A far expanded second edition prolifically illustrated throughout from photographs, and a colour map of the ‘Seaports of the Far East’.

First published in 1907, this edition was expanded from 300 to 530 pages, with large numbers of additional photographs, and new chapters on Indonesia and Thailand.
 
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Price HK$ 7,000



Borneo and the Indian Archipelago. With Drawings of Costume and Scenery - Frank S. Marryat

1848 - Longman, London - First Edition
A superbly illustrated work on Indonesia, and Rajah Brooke, with additional detail on Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

Illustrations include the marvellous illustrated title page, chromolithographed colour frontispiece, twenty tinted lithographic plates, and thirty-seven woodcuts. Many of Marryat’s expertly lithographed drawings represent the earliest ethnographical records of life in Borneo and the Indian Archipelago.

Frank Marryat served as a Midshipman on board the H.M.S. Samarang on a surveying expedition to the Indian Archipelago, 1843-1846, cut short in consequence, as Mr. Marryat infers, of the ill-conditioned behaviour and unpopularity of her captain, Sir Edward Belcher.

Interestingly, Frank Marryat (1826-55) was the son of Naval Officer and novelist Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848), a pioneer of nautical fiction, in particular ‘
Mr. Midshipman Easy’, the blueprint for works such as C. S. Forrester’s ‘Hornblpower’ and Patrick O'Brian's ‘Master and Commander’. 
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Price HK$ 15,000



Antiquarian, Architectural, and Landscape Illustrations of the History of Java - Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

1844 - Henry G. Bohn, London - First Thus
Magnificent large quarto volume of illustrations with great provenance, formerly from the library of Admiral Sir James Gordon (1782-1869) who served as a Midshipman under Admiral Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, and went on to command ships during the later stages of the Napoleonic Wars. He eventually attained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, and is considered to be one of the main inspirations for C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower, alongside Thomas Cochrane, George Cockburn and others.

This separate volume of topographical, archaeological, linguistic and anthropological plates was published in 1844 to accompany the 1830 second edition of Sir Stamford Raffles’ landmark work ‘
The History of Java’, including twenty four additional plates not found in the first edition of 1817.

With 92 illustrated plates, including 10 fine hand-coloured aquatints and a very large folding map. No text. In the publisher’s original gilt and red cloth binding.
 
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Price HK$ 18,000



Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula - Walter William Skeat, Charles Otto Blagden

1906 - Macmillan &, London - First Edition
A large and comprehensive two volume ethnographic study on the manners, customs, religion, and language of the peoples of the Malay Peninsula.

Profusely illustrated. Skeats adds a bibliography of most of the early literature, consisting of mainly travelogues and reports by colonial administrators and a few scholarly journal articles.

‘Skeat went to much trouble to obtain a large and comprehensive collection of photographs for use as illustrations, which are an excellent record of aboriginal life in his time. He also wrote an Introduction entitled '
Environment', which is a first-rate description of the Malayan jungle and its flora and fauna as a habitat, and he also included a bibliography which, among other things, takes in the work of continental scholars of his day on Malayan aborigines.’ - [J.M. Gullick, The Skeat Collection, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford] 
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Price HK$ 3,800