Illustrations of China and its people.

A series of two hundred photographs with letterpress descriptions of the places and people represented. London : Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, 1873-74. First edition. Four volumes, folio, gilt-illustrated pictorial cloth over bevelled boards (corners bumped, edges rubbed and scuffed), the first volume rebacked with original spine laid down; containing a total of 200 photographs printed on 96 plates, with guard sheets and accompanying letterpress descriptions; a few expertly sealed marginal tears to the first leaves of the first volume, occasional light foxing (not affecting the plates), a very good set.

Scottish-born photographer John Thomson moved to Hong Kong in 1868, after spending three years as a professional photographer with a studio in Singapore and another year in Bangkok. From his base in Hong Kong, Thomson sailed far up the east coast of China and ventured inland to places where the population had never seen a Westerner or a camera before. Thomson photographed a wide array of Chinese people and topography, returning to England in 1872. In 1873, the first two volumes of his monumental Illustrations of China and its people was published, featuring photographs reproduced using the autotype process. 600 copies were printed of each volume. The print run increased to 750 copies for the third and fourth volumes respectively in 1874, with an additional 150 copies of the first two volumes reissued to complement the additional copies (these are marked Second Edition). The set offered here is a complete set of the first edition of the most important nineteenth-century photographic publication on China.