Dictionnaire Chinois, Français Et Latin. [WITH:] Supplément…Publié D’Après L’Ordre De Sa Majesté Le Roi D Prusse Frédéric-Guillaume III Par Jules Klaproth.

Paris: L'Imprimerie Royale, 1813-19. First Edition of this monumental work, the first printed dictionary from Chinese into a Western language. It was commissioned in 1809 by Napoleon I, who entrusted the task of preparing the work to French merchant-trader, ambassador and sinologist Chrétien Louis Joseph de Guignes. De Guignes had spent seventeen years from 1784 to 1801 in China where he travelled extensively and served for a time as ambassador to Canton. From 1794-95 he acted as interpreter to Isaac Titsingh, the Dutch ambassador to the court of the Emperor Quianlong in Peking, where they witnessed the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Emperor's reign. Shortly after publication it became known that the dictionary had actually been compiled by the Italian Franciscan friar, Basilio Brollo de Gemona sometime during his years as a missionary to China from 1684 to 1704, and had circulated in manuscript after his death. The Chinese characters that were eventually used in the 1813 dictionary had been engraved on wood under the supervision of French orientalist, Étienne Fourmont, between 1715 and 1742. These 'Buis du Régent', actually fashioned from pear wood, were originally intended to be used for a number of projected publications. "Brollo's innovation was to provide a Chinese character dictionary alphabetically collated by transliteration, with a user-friendly index arranged by radicals and strokes, successfully combining Chinese and European lexicographic traditions. This lexicographical macrostructure was adopted in Morrison's [Chinese-English] dictionary, and most bilingual Chinese dictionaries up to the present day." (Yang Huiling (2014). 'The Making of the First Chinese-English Dictionary: Robert Morrison’s Dictionary of the Chinese Language in Three Parts’, 1815-1823). The dictionary is offered here with the scarce supplement prepared by German orientalist and explorer Heinrich Julius Klaproth. Brunet II 568. Cordier III 1589-90. Graesse III 180. Lust 1037 & 1048. 2 Volumes. folio. pp. 3 p.l., lvi, 1112, [2]errata; x, 168. with half-titles. 19th century half calf (extremities worn, front joint cracked, several library stamps, else internally very good), Supplement uncut in modern cloth with original wrs. bound in (several library stamps, else internally very good). elala6108