OLIPHANT, Laurence.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the Years 1857, '58, '59. First edition, uncommon in the original cloth, with the armorial bookplate of Samuel Briggs (1776-1868), a key British diplomatic and mercantile presence in Egypt throughout the first half of the 19th century. He was appointed consul at Alexandria by the Levant Company during the seventh Earl of Eligin's tenure as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888) first joined the Earl of Elgin's suite in 1853 when the latter was governor-in-chief of British North America, accompanying him to Washington for the negotiation of a treaty of economic reciprocity with Canada. In 1857, Oliphant was again private secretary to Elgin on his visit to China as high commissioner and plenipotentiary during the Second Opium War. Oliphant "accompanied Elgin to Hong Kong, was present at the bombardment of Canton (Guangzhou), and helped to storm Tientsin (Tianjin). He was employed in several minor missions, and visited Japan with the expedition barely eighteen months after the American Townsend Harris had been accredited as the first foreign diplomat to the shogun's government" (ODNB).Provenance: the design of the finely engraved bookplate on the front pastedown of volume I gives many clues to the identity of its owner. In 1835, during a return to Britain from Egypt, Briggs married Camilla Larking (1798-1872). Camilla was the sister of John Wingfield Larking (1802-1891), the British c

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