MEDHURST, Walter Henry (trans.).

£3,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Dissertation on the Silk-Manufacture, and the Cultivation of the Mulberry. First edition, published in a period when Europeans were still striving to match the commercial appeal of Chinese silk. This is the first appearance in English of material from the Nonzheng quanshu, a classic Ming dynasty treatise on agriculture written by the official Xu Guangqi. The 16 illustrations, derived from Xu's text, show aspects of the cultivation and manufacturing processes.Medhurst was the archetypal missionary-scholar. "His works were numerous, and included thirty-four Chinese and some sixty-two Malay volumes, as well as translations from the Chinese and his English writings. They exhibit unceasing activity of mind, a remarkable gift for languages, and an intellect not shackled by the disciplinary barriers between sacred and secular learning" (ODNB). This work was the third issued in Medhurst's Chinese Miscellany series, and publication coincided with the outbreak of the global silkworm pandemic, which decimated European and Asian manufactures.

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