Du Halde, J.B. de

FIRST EDITION, 4 volumes, folio (410 x 270mm.), half-titles, titles printed in red and black with engraved vignettes, 53 engraved maps and plans, 43 folding, 12 engraved plates, 10 folding, engraved and woodcut head-pieces and initials, contemporary mottled calf, spines gilt in 7 compartments, lettered in 2, red and green morocco lettering-pieces, red edges

Cordier, Sinica 46; Löwendahl 394; Western Travellers in China 39

A FINE COPY OF THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OF CHINA printed in the eighteenth century, drawn from the accounts and surveys (both published and unpublished) of twenty-seven Jesuits. This encyclopaedic work not only provided valuable information on Chinese political institutions, education, language, medicine, science, customs and artefacts, but also included 43 maps by d'Anville. Drawn from recent surveys made by the Jesuits in China, these maps are considered by Tooley to be "the principal cartographic authority on China during the 18th century". The work also contains the first separate map of Korea, together with a previously unpublished account of that country by Jean-Baptiste Régis.