smith charles chen huang (1 Ergebnisse)

First edition in Chinese, first printing, of this mathematical primer published in English in 1886. This edition was issued by the Tokyo-based Chinese International Student Association to meet the needs of the many pathbreaking students from China who ventured to Japan at the turn of the century in search of a modern education and the scientific knowledge they believed was needed to rejuvenate their home country. The translator, Chen Huang (1872-1931), was the consumate late-Qing Chinese scholar based overseas. Besides his academic activities, he also participated in Sun Yat-Sen's Tongmenghui and other societies dedicated to bringing about the fall of the Qing dynasty and a transition to Republicanism. With editions regularly superseded, Chinese-language textbooks rarely found their way into permanent university collections, making the present example a particularly pleasing survival. Provenance: purple ink stamps of "Sig. Studii Partis Wallonicae O.F.M. in Belgio" and "Ex libris R. D. E. Gelin" on the title page verso. The Franciscan Ordo Fratrum Minorem was involved in early European attempts to make contact with China; we have traced one or both of these stamps on a number of religious and scientific texts appearing in commerce in the last two decades, but further information about their associations unfortunately remains elusive. Octavo. Mathematical equations in text. Original black bead-grained cloth, spine lettered in gilt in English and Chinese, covers blocked in blind. Couple of near-contemporary pressmarks on title page, black numerical stamps on title page and copyright page verso, Spine sunned, boards lightly stained and scuffed with cockling at head of rear cover, occasional creasing internally, more significantly to p. 331. A very good copy.