Géographie de l’Empire de Chine (Cours Inférieur) = Fa wen Chung-kuo kʻun yü lüeh chih

Chang-hai [Shanghai] : Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique a l’Orphelinat de T’ou-Sè-Wè, 1905. First edition. Small octavo (187 x 127 mm), publisher’s tan cloth with pictorial device and lettering in English and Chinese in black, spine lettered in English and Chinese in gilt (flecking to both boards and spine); front pastedown bearing the original owner’s pencilled inscription ‘Lieutenant Reynault, garde des légations, Pékin 1908’, which is repeated on the title-page; pp. xii, 2, 274, xiii-xx, [1 corrigenda]; text in French; with 34 maps and plans (18 folding) and one (of two) very large folding colour map ‘Carte de Chine … par L. Richard‘ in rear pocket (a few minor tears at junctions of the folds); joints cracked, title-page with loss at top edge, some light foxing (mainly confined to pastedowns and outermost leaves, including title-page), leaves a little dog-eared, lacking one of the two maps at rear. An interesting association copy, having once belonged to a French officer attached to the military guard of the Peking Legation.

‘Tushanwan (Chinese: 土山灣, French romanisation: Tousèwè, T’ou-Sè-Wè) was the name of a Jesuit-run orphanage and workshops in Shanghai from the 1860s to the 1940s. The workshops taught the orphaned boys vocational skills, and were of such high quality (with imported machinery and visiting tutors), that they offered the first training in Western arts and crafts in China, and had a significant influence on Chinese artists in the twentieth century.’ (Wikipedia)