Search Results: Titles starting with A from John Randall (Books of Asia)

[London]: Awnsham and John Churchill, [1704]. First edition in English, and first edition of second English translation, extracted from Churchill's Voyages, folio, 31 x 20 cm., pp. [545]-556; (787)-838. A very good copy in modern half calf, marbled boards. A few wormholes to first third of text, affecting some letters but not legibility. The first English translation of Backhoff's Anhang zwoer Reisen (1674) and Wagener's A Short Account of the Voyages including his time in China in 1653, with the second English translation of Borri's Relatione. Feodor Iskowitz Backhoff was the Russian Ambassador who journeyed into Kattay (i.e. China) in 1654, and Zacharias Wagener spent 35 years journeying across the world and unsuccessfully attempted to open trade out of China, during which he gained considerable fame in Holland. Christopher, or Christoforo, Borri (1583-1632), joined the Society of Jesus in 1601, and was sent with his fellow Jesuit Marquez to Vietnam in 1616. He spent five years in… Read More

London: Printed for Awnsham and John Churchill, [1732]. Second edition in English, extracted from Churchill's Voyages, folio, pp. [iv, title and preface], 380. Lacking the two plates. A very good copy in old polished calf boards, recently rebacked, end-papers and page edges comb marbled. Boards a little rubbed and scuffed, text block tight and clean. Domingo Fernández Navarrete (1610-1689), a Dominican friar, served as a missionary in China for many years and was much opposed to the Jesuits' accommodation to traditional Chinese customs in the notorious Rites Controversy. His book, a valued and sympathetic account of China, first appeared in Spanish in 1676 and became popular through much of Europe, especially among those hostile to the Jesuits for its explicitly anti-Jesuit arguments (see Löwendahl 165). The present abridged translation was the first published English translation, appearing in Awnsham and John Churchill's multi-volume 'Collection of voyages' (1704).… Read More

London: George Allen & Unwin, 1949. First edition, first impression, pp.648, many illustrations, some in colour, 9 folding maps on seven sheets, and 6 folding genealogical tables. A very good copy in lightly soiled original cloth. Corners bumped, occasionally very lightly foxed. One of the most important accounts of Bedouin nomadic life around the Arabian Gulf by British administrator Lieutenant Colonel Harold Richard Patrick Dickson (1881-1959). Dickson served as British official in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Kuwait from 1919 until 1941. This work was the first, and only biographic, book he wrote on the now endangered way of life of the northern Arab Gulf. This work is considered 'monumental' in preserving Bedouin life and history, especially because Dickson recounts the detailed family and tribe relations he witnessed and heard in the oral histories told over evening campfires. He credits his friendly relations with the Bedouins to the circumstances around his nursing. He was… Read More

Cairo: Government Press, 1952-1951. First edition, three volumes, 4to, pp.xv, 188; xii, 95; x, 92 plates. Service des Antiquites dl l'Egypte. Limited to 500 copies. A very good set in later cloth with original wrappers bound in. Slightly rubbed extremities, original wrappers lightly soiled. One of the earliest professional archaeological accounts of the ancient settlements of Marib and El Gof in Yemen, and the second ever work to publish photographs of these important historical sites. One chapter describes all previous scientific journeys to Marib, to establish the new ground made in this work. Ahmed Fakhry (1905-1973) was an Egyptian archaeologist who broke new ground in Arabian and Egyptian archaeology. He is known for his excavation and study of the 'Bent Pyramid' at Dahshur. Gonzague Ryckmans (1887-1969) was a Belgian linguist who pioneered the documenting and deciphering of pre-Islamic languages from the Arabian Peninsula.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947. First edition, 4to, pp.xl, 73, 169 plates. An internally very good copy in original cloth. Upper board creased and slightly finger stained, corners bumped. The scarce first volume recording the results of Janse's three archaeological excavations in Indo-China from 1934 to 1939. Robert Ture Olov Janse (1892-1985), a Swedish archaeologist, is widely lauded as the man who brought organisation and respectability to Southeast Asian archaeology. His excavations were largely focused on brick tombs of the Han period in Tonkin and North and Central Annam, particularly Dong-so'n. Of the dozens of tombs uncovered one was one of the largest subterranean brick buildings in Indo-China (tomb no.2 of Nghi-ve) and several were completely undisturbed, leading to rich funerary deposits. Some later tombs and locations were contemporary with the Sung and T'ang dynasty. The second and third volumes published several years later are not present.

Dublin: printed at the University Press, 1862. Second English edition, the first with Gibbing's introduction and notes, 8vo (23 x 14.5 cm), pp.[iv], 111, [1, advertisements]. A very good copy in contemporary embossed cloth, gilt title on spine. Largely unopened. Light rubbing to boards, corners slightly bumped. Scattered foxing. An important tract on Christianity in China compiled by the Lutheran theologian Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693-1755) with a fifty-page introduction by Richard Gibbing and his extensive notes. This text was first published in German as Erzählung der neuesten Chinesischen Kirchengeschichte (1748), both separately and as an addition to the first German edition of Du Halde. An English translation was published in 1750 but, according to this editor's introduction, was 'so scarce that its existence is almost unknown'. Von Mosheim provides a historical sketch of Christianity in China and a detailed Protestant analysis of the Catholic missions and the Chinese… Read More