Notitia linguæ Sinicæ. Auctore P. Premare.

A$6,500 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Limited edition

Malaccæ : Cura et sumptibus Collegii Anglo-Sinici [Anglo-Chinese College], 1831. First edition. Large quarto (300 x 250 mm), contemporary half calf over marbled papered boards, spine with gilt rule and red morocco title label lettered in gilt; pp. [1]-262 (numbering erratic at pp. 144-149 as in all copies), [2 blank], 28 (Index), with two front and two rear blank leaves; text in Latin, with passages and examples in Chinese characters throughout; old tear to title leaf expertly conserved, a short tear to the gutter of pp. 5-6, small tear to margin of pp. 167-68, corners clipped to pp. 213-216, not affecting the text, a very good example, bound without the Acknowledgement leaf, as it is sometimes found. The French Jesuit Father Joseph Prémare (1666-1736) worked as a missionary in Guangxi from 1699 until 1724, and subsequently, after banishment by the Yongzheng Emperor, in Macau, where he remained until his death. He completed his Notitia linguae sinicae in 1729, and the following year his original manuscript entered the collection of the Bibliothèque Royale in Paris. Notitia linguae sinicae would surely have become a landmark work on the Chinese language in the West in the eighteenth century, yet it was not published until almost a hundred years after his death. Offered here is the first edition, printed on the Anglo-Chinese press in Malacca in 1831. Three individuals were chiefly responsible for Prémare s work finally appearing in print. The first of these was Stanislas Julien

• Binding: Hardcover

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