Notitia linguæ Sinicæ of Premare.

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

Limited edition

Translated into English by J. G. Bridgman. Canton : Printed at the Office of the Chinese Repository, 1847. Octavo (210 x 140 mm), recent half calf over marbled papered boards, spine with gilt decoration and red morocco title label lettered in gilt; pp. [8], [i]-xxxv, [2], 26-328; text in English with passages and examples in Chinese characters throughout; title with early ex libris stamp of Samuel H. Turner and a later Chinese ownership stamp in red; internally very clean, an excellent example. Rare first edition of the first English translation of Prémare s landmark grammar of the Chinese language, printed in Canton. The translator, James Granger Bridgman of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, was a cousin of missionary Elijah Coleman Bridgman. 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. The first edition was printed on the Anglo-Chinese press in Malacca in 1831. Three individuals were chiefly responsible for Prémare s work finally appea

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.