DOUGLAS, Robert Kennaway.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Catalogue of Chinese Printed Books, Manuscripts and Drawings in the Library of the British Museum. First edition of this valuable reference, with a British Museum presentation bookplate. The museum's Chinese collection was founded on an 1825 bequest by the orientalist scholar John Fowler Hill. Queen Victoria gave books captured during the First Opium War, and in 1847 the British government purchased 11,500 volumes from the library of the sinologist John Robert Morrison.Issued in the formative period of British sinology, the catalogue was compiled by the first keeper of the museum's Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts, Robert Kennaway Douglas (1838-1913). He joined the museum in 1865, following a successful diplomatic career in China, and remained there until his retirement in 1907.

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