New Year’s Eve in Lan-Fang : a Judge Dee story.

Beirut : [Imprimerie Catholique], 1958. First edition. Limited to 200 copies. Inscribed by the author, in Dutch, on the half-title: ‘Met beste wenschen voor 1959! R. H. en F. van Gulik, Beyrouth, Dec. ’58.’ Small octavo (175 x 115 mm), original printed wrappers (upper wrapper sunned at top edge); 32 pp., with a frontispiece illustration, and two Chinese character decorations in red, one on the title and one at the foot of the main text, denoting fu (“happiness”) and shou (“long life”), respectively; some light foxing to the first and last few leaves, otherwise internally very good.

Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) was a Dutch orientalist, diplomat, musician, and writer. He is now best known for his fiction writing, most notably his Judge Dee mysteries, which are loosely based on the historical figure Di Renjie, a court magistrate and statesman of the Tang dynasty.

New Year’s Eve in Lan-Fang is a murder-mystery set in ancient China. Of all the Judge Dee books, it is the hardest to obtain, as it was privately printed by the author and sent to friends as a form of New Year’s greeting card from himself and his wife, Frances – hence all of the known copies are inscribed.