Introductory Mandarin Lessons - or - Hua Yu Hsin Chieh Ching - J. M. McHugh - First Lieutenant U. S. Marines. Attach 1931 - Kelly &, Shanghai - First Edition Rare first edition In fine condition and with the dust jacket.

Written by OSS officer James McHugh, who was assigned as a Marine to the U.S Language Officer program in Peking. He went on to become Naval Attaché and after twenty years in China, retired to Washington to work for Jardine, Matheson & Co.

A practical course aimed at beginner’s, with 50 lessons including
Money; Drinking Tea; Tobacco; Clocks; The Family; Buying Silk; and Buying Hats and Shoes.
  Colonel James Marshall McHugh USMC (1899-1966) served for over twenty years in China as a United States intelligence officer and Naval Attaché with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Proficient in several dialects and spoke Mandarin flawlessly. He became a close friend of both Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and the ubiquitous Madame Chiang as well as Chiang's political advisor, W.H. Donald. ‘As an intimate in the palace circle, he served as Ambassador Johnson's eyes and ears, much to the irritation of his fellow attaché at the time, Colonel (Joseph) Stilwell, who saw McHugh always bustling with private knowledge and whispering to the Ambassador’.

Following his retirement in 1946, he was employed by Jardine, Matheson & Co. Ltd in Washington to provide information about the domestic political situation as it related to China and to work with Balfour, Guthrie & Co. Ltd, the company's representatives in New York

Reference: Mattingly,
Herringbone Cloak--GI Dagger, Marines of the OSS. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China.

Tall octavo (book size 25x16.3cm), pp. [2] xix [1] 251 [3]. In publisher’s red cloth, spine with English and Chinese lettering in gilt, and in blind to upper board. Dust jacket without price, as published.
  Condition: Fine in very good dust jacket, chips to spine ends, wear along edges, toned.   Ref: 111558   Price: HK$ 6,000