Shanghai considered socially. A lecture by H. Lang.

Second edition. Shanghai : American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1875. Octavo, recent quarter calf over marbled papered boards, spine lettered in gilt; pp. 60, [4 statistical tables]; an excellent copy.

‘I wish to make a few observations on the social history, condition and prospects of the Foreign Settlement which has grown up close to the native city of Shanghai, in terms of the Treaty between Great Britain and China made at Nankin in Aug. 1842….’ (p. 3).

‘In 1868, the British newspaper publisher Hugh Lang founded The Shanghai Courier in Shanghai, and later renamed it as The Shanghai Evening Courier, which merged with The Evening Gazette in 1875 and continued to be published with the title The Shanghai Courier & China Gazette; in April 1878, it changed its name back to The Shanghai Courier until 1889 when it merged with The Shanghai Mercury.’ (Hong Kong Baptist University Library)

Lang died at Shanghai on 9 January 1875, meaning that this second printing of his lecture, which provides a fascinating snapshot of the social fabric of the enclave, would have been issued posthumously, no doubt to commemorate Lang’s significant contribution to the affairs of the expatriate community in Shanghai and beyond. The scant references to the first printing of the pamphlet indicate that it bore the variant title Shanghai socially considered, and that it was issued in 1873. (OCLC locates no copies of the first edition).