23, 2, 2, 4, 3, 3, 22, 24, 12; 38, 28, 16; 15, 1, 20, 9 folding leaves. Five full-page woodblock maps. Woodblock-printed. Five kwŏn in three volumes. Small folio (384 x 202 mm.), orig. semi-stiff patterned wrappers, with handwritten titles on upper covers, old stitching. Daegu: Inhŭngjaesa, 1869.

First edition of this famous biography of the 13th-century Korean scholar Ch’u Chŏk 秋適 (1246-1317), which establishes him as the author of the famous Myŏngsim pogam 明心寶鑑 [Ch. Mingxin baojian; The Precious Mirror for Enlightening the Mind], the first book ever translated from Literary Chinese into a Western language. Compiled by... More