China books Christmas calendar (19)

It is time for another comprehensive work, aiming to describe ”everything” about China. This time an original edition from 1848, The Middle Kingdom: a survey of the geography, government, education, social life, arts, religion, etc. of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants by Samuel Wells Williams (衛三畏 1812–1884). Williams was an American sinologist and missionary, arriving in China already in 1833, and for a while was the only foreign missionary in the country together with Elijah Coleman Bridgman (1801-1861). They were both pioneers of American sinology, and when Williams returned to the USA in the 1870s he became the first professor of Chinese at Yale University. Bridgeman and Williams also co-edited The Chinese Repository 中國叢報 for around twenty years.

In his later years Williams revised his two volume book, and it has been republished also in the 21st century. Note the interesting Beijing map above and try to trace what buildings and structures are still there today. The letter ”q” marks the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception 聖母無染原罪堂 near Xuanwumen 宣武門, often known simply as Nantang 南堂 ”Southern Cathedral”, built more or less on the site of where Matteo Ricci resided when arriving in Beijing in the early 1600s .

The previous owner of this book is also an interesting person. You can see his red stamp above, reading 富亭印篾達裕士行一, to be interpreted as ”Seal of Hoetink, the eldest son Bernardus”. This supposedly means Bernardus Hoetink (1854–1927), a Dutch colonial official, interpreter and sinologist, of whom you may read more in The Early Dutch Sinologists (1854-1900). Again, we have no clue how the book ended up in Gothenburg.

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