Mcmichael e h (1 Ergebnisse)

First edition, recorded in only two libraries worldwide, this the copy of Eric Teichman, "one of British diplomacy's dashing characters, a flamboyantly enigmatic explorer-cum-special agent" (Winchester, p. 73). Teichman, whose 1931 signature is on the front free endpaper, was a keen rider and has added a few notes to the text. An old China hand and experienced trader, the author had a reputation as Shanghai's best polo player in the 1910s and 1920s. He put pen to paper at the urging of fellow officers in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, in which he served at the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Teichman "travelled much in central Asia and spent most of the early part of his career on special service on the Tibetan border and in the loess highlands of the north-west, regions upon which he became the acknowledged authority" (ODNB). Much of his subsequent service was in Beijing as Chinese secretary. On his retirement in 1936, he "journeyed home through central Asia in order to carry out a special mission to Urumchi on the way. He travelled from Suiyuan to Kashgar by motor-truck, crossed the Pamir and the Karakoram ranges to Gilgit by pony and on foot, and then travelled by air to Delhi" (ODNB). As he notes on page 7, "give me the China pony for China polo every time." Copies are held by the British Library and the USA National Sporting Library. Simon Winchester, Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China, 2008. Octavo. Frontispiece after a sketch of the Shanghai Polo Club pavilion, illustrations and diagrams in text. Original blue diagonal-grain cloth, front cover lettered and decorated in gilt, vignette on front free endpaper. Contemporary Shanghai bookseller's ticket on rear pastedown. Boards lightly silverfished, extremities rubbed: very good.…