WORCESTER, G. R. G.

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The Junkman Smiles. First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title, "To Professor V. D. Tate. With every good wish from the author. G. R. G. Worcester. Windlesham, June 1966". Accompanying the inscription is Worcester's red Chinese seal.Vernon D. Tate (1909-1989) served as the librarian at the United States Naval Academy between 1956 and 1967 and continued as the institution's archivist until 1969. He arranged for the Naval Institute Press to publish a new edition of Worcester's monumental Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze in 1972 and reviewed it for the New York Times.Following naval service in China and the Middle East during the First World War, Worcester (1890-1969) spent the next thirty years helping survey the Yangtze river and open it for steam navigation to a distance almost 1,500 miles from the sea. This autobiographical work, written after he had retired to Windlesham, Surrey, describes his lifetime of experiences in China. "Everything dealt with in this book concerns the old China, the China that has passed away; the wheelbarrow and sedan chair have given up the unequal struggle with the diesel engine and the jet aircraft, the graceful sail has been driven out by the unromantic funnel, and the China that I knew has gone for ever" (p. 12).

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