History & Culture
A wide selection of rare first editions, signed and inscribed copies, deluxe and collectible editions of books, pamphlets, and ephemera relating to history, archaeology, anthropology, folklore, occult, and religion.
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WATTS, Alan. "Miniature Art Gallery": napkin inscribed with Buddhist and Taoist calligraphy and doodles.[Perhaps California] : 1970s
A dynamic example of Watts's application of Buddhist philosophy to everyday life, inscribed along the right-hand side, "This miniature art gallery is for Marina. From Alan." Aspirational with the calligraphy brush, he invokes the idea that "the way follows nature" (one of the cornerstones of the Tao Te Ching), the concept of introspection, and the... Learn More -
BIBLE IN ASIA - GOBLE, Jonathan (trans.). Matai fukuinsho (The Gospel of Matthew).[Tokyo] : 1871
First edition, first printing; a milestone in the global history of Christianity. This translation, which preceded Hepburn's work, was produced in secret. Because of anti-Christianity laws, all publishers in Yokohama refused to take the job. It was then suppressed upon publication. There are only two institutional copies of the first printing,... Learn More -
GUTENBERG, moveable-type printing before. A page from a book printed in 1422 with the Kyongja-Ja moveable bronze type.Los Angeles : 1966
Excellently preserved evidence of moveable-type printing in East Asia over 30 years before the Gutenberg Bible (1454-55). Pleasingly, the specimen is a full page. Copies of McGovern's catalogue sometimes only have a half-page sample, as his supply was limited.
Experimentation with moveable type began in Asia in the 11th century. The oldest... Learn More -
LITTLETON, Adam. Linguae Latinae Liber Dictionarius Quadripartitus. A Latine Dictionary, In Four Parts.London : 1684
Second edition of this accomplished Latin dictionary by the prominent clergyman (1627-1694), first published in 1678. This copy is from the library of the seminal potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795).
Wedgwood drew heavily on Roman examples when designing his products, even naming his Etruria works after the ancient Etruscans. On the opening... Learn More -
HEPBURN, James Curtis. The Book of Psalms. English and Japanese.Yokohama : 1888
First edition, bound for presentation and with the contemporary book label of George Cochran, a Canadian missionary who served alongside Hepburn on the committee that produced the first complete edition of the Bible in Japanese. Hepburn's method for romanizing Japanese - devised in the 1860s - is the standard system used today.
Arriving in... Learn More -
WOMEN'S CLUBS. Chinese Chapters from the Book of the Stanley Club.Tianjin : 1935
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the co-editor and signed by a contributor, "To dear Mrs Hersey, with happy memories of the past from Katharine M. Lowry and Mary Augusta Mullikin. Tientsin, China - 10 January 1936." The recipient, Grace Nancy Baird, wrote the first chapter. She was the mother of John Hersey, the author of Hiroshima... Learn More -
HOKUSAI. Ehon chukyo ("The Illustrated Classic of Loyalty").Edo : 1834
First edition of this primer on the Classic of Loyalty (ch. Zhongjing), illustrated with exemplars of virtue. Hokusai's expressive style and rendering of Chinese figures is on full display, prepared in the same period as he was creating The Great Wave.
The Classic is a Confucian treatise attributed to the Later Han scholar Ma Rong, although... Learn More -
CHINESE MEDICINE. Woodblock for a print advertising Qingxin soup, "A Medicine for Madness and Mental Disturbance".[Yokkaichi : mid-19th century]
A well-preserved woodblock used to print an advertising sheet for Seishinto (Qingxin soup), a popular herbal remedy for stress relief. The medicine was sold by Fujisawa Masauke, a resident of Komaki Village in Yokkaichi (near Nagoya), one of the last stations on the Tokaido highway between Edo and Kyoto. We have traced no surviving copies of the... Learn More -
LANNING, George; Samuel Couling; Charlotte Couling. The History of Shanghai.Shanghai : 1921 & 1923
First editions, a complete set, Volume II considerably harder to find than the first. George Lanning and Samuel Couling (1859-1922) were veteran foreign residents of the city. An educator, Lanning ran a boys' school for several decades. His co-author was a missionary, as well as a correspondent of Sir Aurel Stein - Couling's collection of ancient... Learn More -
BALLANTYNE, James Robert. The Aphorisms of the Yoga Philosophy, of Patanjali with Illustrative Extracts from the Commentary by Bhoja Rájá.Allahabad : 1852 & 1853
First editions, a complete set of the first translation into English of any parts of the Yoga Sutras. The title page of Part II gives a print run of 400 copies, and surviving copies of either book are concentrated institutionally. We cannot trace another set in commerce in recent decades.
Ballantyne (1813-1864) was appointed professor of... Learn More -
WESTERNERS IN CHINA. "A Collection of Autographs Prepared for Rev. J. K. Burr at Foochow, China, on the 20th of November 1867, by S. L. Baldwin."Fuzhou : 1867
A who's who of missionary and diplomatic life in 19th-century China, inscribed by Baldwin to Burr on the first leaf. Among the many figures represented are Eliza Bridgman, one of the first American female missionaries in China, George Seward (US consul-general in Shanghai), W. A. P. Martin, a professor at the Qing court's Tongwenguan in Beijing,... Learn More -
COMMERCIAL AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE. Fuon sozu: Eiwa jii. = An English and Japanese dictionary,Yokohama : 1873
First edition of this "work of monumental value in the history of English-Japanese dictionaries" (Kokawa et al., p. 77). Based on John Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, it was the largest of its kind, with over 55,000 entries and many new terms for emerging technologies, medicines, and products.
The first... Learn More -
BUDDHISM. A scroll from the Jingoji Tripitaka;[Japan : 1150-1185]
A bright and shining example of a late-Heian period sutra, stored for 800 years in Jingoji Temple, Kyoto. The complete set was commissioned by Emperors Toba and Go Shirakawa from 1150 to 1185, exemplifying the highest standard of craftsmanship available at the time. Other examples have been named Important Cultural Properties in Japan.
The... Learn More -
JUNG, Carl (commentary). The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life.London : 1935
Inscribed copy of the third impression, inscribed by Jung on the front free endpaper, "With the author's compliments, C. G. Jung." Richard Wilhelm's translation of the Taoist Taiyijin huazongzhi was published in German in 1929. The English-language edition, first printed in 1931, added the text of the address given by Jung at Wilhelm's funeral in... Learn More -
VAN REED, Eugene Miller, & Ginko Kishida (eds.). Yokohama shinpo moshiogusa ("Yokohama News Anthology").[Edo : 1870
A partial run of one of Japan's first modern newspapers. This paper "stretched the boundaries of the nascent Japanese news media, including not just news and opinion, but also satire and political cartoons" (Munson, p. 37). Issue 20 reports on a telegram sent back by Hawai'i's first Japanese immigrants, illustrated with an early Japanese map of... Learn More -
PERRY EXPEDITION. Banpaku Shimoda nyuko kikigaki ("A Ledger of Foreign Ships Entering the Port of Shimoda").[Japan : c. 1856]
An untraced manuscript record of the Western ships that arrived in Shimoda after Perry signed the Convention of Kanagawa. They include those from his fleet such as the Mississippi and the Macedonian, as well as the Russian flagship Diana and many smaller trading vessels about which little information survives.
Compiled anonymously, the... Learn More -
EITEL, Ernest John. Hand-Book for the Student of Chinese Buddhism.Hong Kong : 1870
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the original front wrapper, "Rev. J. Chalmers, M.A., with the author's kindest regards." Eitel's Hand-Book gave Western scholars a long-awaited lexicographical tool for studying Chinese Buddhist texts and navigating between Chinese and Sanskrit.
A Lutheran scholar-missionary, the... Learn More -
KUROSAWA, Akira. Shooting script for Kagemusha.[Tokyo] : c.1980
The copy of Kamatari Fujiwara, who regularly worked with Kurosawa and played a physician in this movie. Kurosawa's "most awesome film" (Canby), Kagemusha was nominated for two Academy Awards and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. This copy is annotated at Fujiwara's lines and scenes.
The script opens with a list of production credits followed by... Learn More -
BUDDHISM. A fragment of the Kegon-kyo ("The Flower Ornament Sutra"), vol. 35, rescued from the Senpuku-ji temple fire.[Kawachi Province : c.12th century]
An exceptional example of late Heian-period sutra production, bearing the telltale burn marks from when flames engulfed the temple where it was stored. "The accidental incineration [is] a reminder of the transience of all material phenomena, and fragments... are cherished by collectors and connoisseurs of calligraphy" (Carpenter, p. 20). Only the... Learn More -
EVANS-WENTZ, Walter Yeeling (ed.). The Tibetan Book of the DeadLondon : 1927
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the editor on the front free endpaper, "To Sir Charles Bell, With the compliments of the author, W. Y. Evans-Wentz. Jesus College, Oxford, 12 August 1927." Bell (1870-1945), the former British political representative in Tibet and a friend of the 13th Dalai Lama, is thanked in the preface for... Learn More
