Tenkō kaibutsu 天工開物 Ch.: Tian gong kai wu; The Exploitation of the Works of Nature

by Yingxing 宋應星 Song

$25,000 · Offered by Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller

First edition

Numerous full-page woodcut illus. in the text. 18 parts in nine vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. block-printed title-slips, new stitching some loose . From colophon : Osaka: Kawachi Mohachi et al. & Edo: Yamazaki Kinbei, 1771. First edition to be printed in Japan, in Chinese with Japanese reading marks, of “China’s greatest technological classic”–Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 4, Part II, p. 171. This book first appeared

• Binding: Wrappers

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