McNEELY, Margaret Verne.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Life of Confucius. First edition, first printing, the hitherto unknown identity of the compiler revealed by a loosely inserted note in the hand of Isabelle Lewis Main, a missionary: "this book was compiled by Miss McNeely of the Kwang Hsueh Press. It is fully authentic. She refuses to let her name appear because of her extreme modesty".Writing across two illustrated notecards and the namecard she shared with her husband, Main (1887-1969) sends this copy and her best wishes to Catherine Freeman Nimitz (1892-1979). Nimitz, a fluent Chinese speaker, lived in Shanghai 1934-35 while Chester Nimitz (the future Commander-in-Chief, United States Pacific Fleet) was serving as captain of USS Augusta, the flagship of the Asiatic Fleet. Also loosely inserted is a chatty two-sheet autograph letter signed to Catherine Nimitz from Bishop John Gowdy, of the Fuzhou Methodist Episcopal Church, telling of his travels and ending with news of the Mains. The letter suggests that the Mains, Nimitzes, and Gowdys summered together in China in 1935.Margaret Verne McNeely (1885-1975) went with the Canadian Presbyterian Mission to China in 1909. In 1917, she accepted an invitation to work at the Kwang Hsueh Publishing House in Shanghai and managed the firm until the onset of the Second World War.

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