MARSHMAN JOSHUA.  The Works of Confucius containing The Orig...

Hammer

£850

MARSHMAN JOSHUA.  The Works of Confucius containing The Original Text with a Translation. "Volume 1". Errata leaves, prelims., xxxix, 725pp concluding with 17pp Postscript. Woodblock Chinese characters (carved by Bengal textile printers). Quarto. Old quarter leather, upper & lower brds. & a few early leaves det. but present, marbled edges, occasional foxing to early leaves but generally clean internally. "Ex Libris Robert Wilson" (poss. 1787-1871, East India Co. surgeon & noted traveller) with his bookplate & manuscript inscription to title leaf "From Robert Wilson to Lady Elma Bruce (dtr. of Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India 1862/63) ... 1862". Also bookplate of that major collector, Charles Sarolea. Serampore, Printed at the Mission Press, 1809. First English translation of the Analects of Confucius without, as is often the case, the Dissertation on the Chinese Language and Character referred to on the title page, & consequently without the folding tables.  Marshman's translation contains the first five of a projected series of twenty books but contains all that were then printed. It was printed at Serampore, the first major centre of English printing in Chinese. The first complete translation was not published until much later, in 1861.