Forty parts in 12 vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, new stitching. At the beginning of each part: Cixi: Prefaces dates 1776 & 1788.

A valuable and influential dictionary of synonyms and antonyms in the Chinese language. Li 厲, a native of Cixi, served as a magistrate in Wangjiang County. Originally published in 39 parts, this edition has the valuable supplement — the 40th part — by Huai Guan, painter and librarian, who lived in Hangzhou, near Cixi.

This is an encyclopedic work, encompassing synonyms and antonyms in all disciplines, including science, politics, history, gastronomy, costumes, technology, books and bibliography... More

60; 36; 30; 48 folding leaves. Four vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. stitching. [Shaoxing]: Guying shanfang 谷應山房, 1882.

First edition, and quite rare, of this monograph on the dialect of Shaoxing, Zhejiang, written at a pivotal moment in the history of the study of language in China. During the final few decades of Qing rule, language emerged as one of the most important areas of both nationalist and regionalist sentiment. Writing in vernacular Chinese began to gradually supplant writing in classical Chinese (Kaske, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895-1919), and dialects were studied to buttress particular visions... More

32 vols. Small 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper wrappers, orig. stitching. Shanghai: Bogu zhai 博古齋, 1921.

An anthology of lyrics, or ci (tz’u) 詞 poetry, by the most famous poets in the genre from the Song period (960-1279 CE). “One of the major poetic genres in China,” lyrics were “originally song text[s] set to existing musical tunes.” The genre “emerged in the T’ang dynasty in response to the popularity of foreign musical tunes newly imported from Central Asia.” Titles of such poems “point to particular tz’u-p’ai 詞牌 (tune patterns) for which the poems are... More

[34] leaves, printed on rectos only. 4to, tan printed wrappers, staple-bound in calendar format. New York: Self-published, 1969.

Siegelaub’s rare “One Month” exhibition catalogue, with contributions by Terry Atkinson, Robert Barry, James Lee Byars, Barry Flanagan, Douglas Huebler, Stephen Kaltenbach, Christine Kozlov, Richard Long, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, Allen Ruppersberg, Robert Smithson, Lawrence Weiner, Ian Wilson, etc. Most of Dan Flavin’s leaf (no. 12) has been torn out.

“For this ‘calendar-as-exhibition,’ Siegelaub asked thirty-one artists to each make a text-based work to be displayed on a single page of the catalogue, representing a single day in the month of March... More

55; 92 folding leaves. Two vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. stitching. [Suzhou]: Jiangsu shuju, 1873.

Genealogy “illuminates all the other parts of history, and without it they bear basically no fruit at all.” Ori Sela draws attention to these words of German Renaissance historian Reiner Reineck (1541–1595) in relation to Qian Daxin’s work on clans in the History of the Yuan. Qian’s “vast project of Yuan genealogies” (Sela, China’s Philological Turn, 263) has indeed been called “an indispensable reference for this History [of the Yuan],” as Qian’s student Huang Zhong 黃鐘 wrote in his colophon to the present... More

Wooden movable type. 57 folding leaves. Large 8vo (305 x 206 mm.), orig. yellow patterned semi-stiff wrappers, orig. stitching. [Korea]: 1920.

First edition of this rare collection of texts relating to Kim Ŏn-su 金彦秀, published by his descendant Kim Si-han, with texts relating to Kim Yun-hyŏn 金潤洵 in appendix. Kim Ŏn-su was a military official who fought in the Imjin War and then in the first Manchu invasion of Korea, during which he perished in battle. The Imjin War (1592-98) was the invasion of Chosŏn Korea by Japan, with Ming China entering the war on the side of... More

Woodblock printed. 85; 63 folding leaves. Four parts in two vols. Large 8vo (306 x 208 mm.), orig. brown semi-stiff wrappers (wrappers somewhat soiled), old stitching. [Korea]: n.d., but 1672?

A rare and early Korean edition of this famous Confucian florilegium (WorldCat 35891613). The author is Song- dynasty thinker and educator Zhen Dexiu (also known as Zhen Xishan 真西山, 1178-1235), who was a follower of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200). Zhen had “a considerable influence on the formation of Neo-Confucian ideology in the Yüan and early Ming” (Chu, “Chu Hsi and Public Instruction,” 273). His book The Classic of... More

Wood-block printed. 23 folding leaves. Folio (364 x 270 mm.), orig. wrappers (wrappers somewhat soiled & marked), new stitching. [Andong: Privately Printed at] Tosan sŏwŏn [or Dosan seowon], [most likely 1578 or, perhaps, 1638].

First edition, privately printed at the Tosan Academy, the private Confucian academy established in 1574, following Yi’s death; this is certainly one of the earliest books to be printed there, if not the first. Yi Hwang (1501-70), also known as Yi T’oegye, was the most influential Neo-Confucian thinker in Chosŏn Korea (his portrait was used on the 1000 won banknote from 1975 to 2007). The... More

425 full-page woodcut ports. 16 vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, old stitching. Changzhou: Privately Printed, 1830-31.

First edition, rare and a very fine set, of this richly illustrated book, a collection of woodblock portraits of historical figures accompanied by short texts. The individuals illustrated, beginning with Cang Jie, the legendary inventor of the Chinese script, lived from antiquity to as recently as the Ming dynasty. Ye Shusheng 葉樹聲 and Yu Minhui 余敏輝, in their Historical Outline of Private Printing in the Lower Yangzi Region in the Ming and Qing Periods (Ming-Qing Jiangnan siren keshu shilüe 明清江南私人刻書史略, 2000), write that... More

Eight vols. 8vo, orig. blue wrappers, new stitching. [China, probably Beijing]: n.d. (see below).

First published in 1635, this book on the sights and customs of the Ming capital of Beijing was the result of a “collaboration between Liu Tong, a Hubei sojourner, and Yu Yizheng, a man from Peking.” It is “the most substantial and important of the guides-cum-travel-accounts that survive” from the late Ming period and a “major milestone in writings about Peking.” Its authors “quoted from more than 1,100 poems about one hundred different places, listing the poems for each sight in chronological order and giving... More

Four full-page woodcuts. 51 folding leaves. 8vo, orig. wrappers, new stitching. Hangzhou: Wang shi Zhenqi Tang 汪氏振綺堂, 1833.

A collection of four “variety plays” (zaju 雜劇), each in one act, featuring arias in both Northern and Southern traditions. The plays retell famous stories in which women often play prominent roles. The first play, “The Daughter of the Zhuo Family Sells Wine” 桌女當壚, tells a legend about the Han dynasty poet Zhuo Wenjun 桌文君 eloping with Sima Xiangru 司馬相如 (179-117 BCE), also a writer, and then opening an inn to make a living. In the second play, “Fan Ji... More

Lithographically printed. 169; 154 pp. Two vols. 8vo, orig. printed wrappers, orig. stitching. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館, 1936.

China in the early 20th century witnessed a “script revolution,” a transformation of the written language that “became one of the biggest linguistic and grammatological experiments in human history” (Zhong, Chinese Grammatology, 1). Wang Youzong’s book was part of this revolution.

Dissection of the Modern Script re-arranged Chinese characters in a way that was supposed to make them easier to learn. Wang intended his dictionary to be used to improve literacy by “students of a middle school level and above, in... More