Yuan shi xin bian 元史新編 [New Edition of the History of the Yuan]

by WEI, Yuan 魏源

$6,500 · Offered by Biblio

32 vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. stitching. Shaoyang, Hunan: Wei Shenwei Tang 魏慎微堂, 1906. First or early edition of a major work on Yuan history by one of the leading Chinese thinkers of the 19th century. The Yuan empire comprised the parts of the Mongol empire that were ruled from present-day Beijing. It included all of China and was treated by later Chinese historiographers as a Chinese imperial dynasty. Thus, after Mongol power in China collapsed in the 14th century and the Ming dynasty took power, they compiled a History of the Yuan based on Chinese precedent and published it in 1370. This work was “compiled in greater haste than the other dynastic histories were, and in consequence it suffers from inadequate preparation and careless editing” (Twitchett & Franke, “Bibliographical Essays,” 689). Scholars in the Qing dynasty sought to remedy these problems. One of these scholars was Wei Yuan (1794-1857). A classicist, historian, and geographer and geostrategist, Wei “drew connections across time and space on an unprecedented scale” (Mosca, From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy, 302). His book, New Edition of the History of the Yuan, is “the first full-scale rewriting of Yüan history in the format of a standard history, using the Secret History [of the Mongols] and Yüan period writings of many kinds” (Twitchett & Franke, 697). When researching the British empire’s possessions in India — a pressing concern in this period, when China and Britain entered into armed conflict

• Binding: unknown

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