​The 21st century has been referred to as “the Chinese century”, a reflection of Beijing’s increasing political, economic, and cultural influence.

China’s rising prominence is making waves in the antiquarian book world, as more people become interested in collecting works which can speak to China’s fascinating and complex history. Where once the rare book trade focused on a select group of famous antiquarian titles, dealers are now offering collectors access to an extraordinary range of materials.

The market has taken off in the past two decades both in China and worldwide with some astonishing results. In 2020, two surviving manuscript volumes of the famous 15th-century Yongle Encyclopaedia achieved 1,000 times their estimate at auction in France. Later the same year, the diaries of the renowned intellectual Hu Shih, written while he was studying abroad in America in the 1920s, fetched $20.9 million at auction in Beijing, the most expensive hammer price for a set of journals ever recorded.

 

A Golden Age of Travel

The possibilities for collectors divide into two overlapping fields: books published about China and books published in Chinese.

While traditional entry points into collecting Chinese rare books range from interest in long-established core works such as the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1687), the book which first introduced Europeans to Confucianism, and early encounter narratives and embassy accounts, dealers sourcing and creating a market for previously uncatalogued niche books have opened up fascinating opportunities for collectors of more unusual and nuanced subject-matter.

Of the many genres now being explored by collectors, China’s popularity today as a tourist destination is translating into increased interest in tourist guides from the Golden Age of travel.

The opening up of the treaty ports, combined with improved long-distance transportation, eventually put cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong within reach of the wealthy from the West. These cities were mysterious and enticing, even to the most experienced global wanderer.

 

Serving the Independent and Intellectual Adventurer

To cater to these adventurers, between 1870 and 1930 there appeared a plethora of guidebooks and other remarkable tourist literature. For foreign travellers, these were both indispensable sources of information, to be kept on one’s person at all times, and treasured souvenirs of their journeys. For today’s collectors interested in the history of travel and East Asia, they are highly prized for their detailed maps and plans, as well as photographs and distinctive period adverts.

The origins of these tourist guidebooks can be found in the narratives written by early travellers to China which enthralled curious European audiences and exoticized China in the Western imagination. The most famous example is Gonzales de Mendoza’s La Historia de las Cosas más Notables, Ritos y Costumbres del Gran Reyno de China, published in 1585 and translated into English in 1588, which galvanized others to travel eastwards for centuries to come. It also containing the first Chinese characters ever printed in a European book.

Later works such as George Staunton’s account of the first official British embassy to China, first published at the close of the 18th century, were frequently embellished with views, plans, and maps to create compelling reading experiences for Western audiences.

Early guidebooks from the second half of the 19th century – now some of the rarest on the market – were straightforward affairs, catering to an audience imagined to be sophisticated and intellectually astute.

For example, the second edition of Frank Warrington Eastlake’s A Guide to Hongkong with a Short Account of Canton & Macao, published around 1890, offers discussion of flora and fauna, geology, dialects, and slang. Discussing the wildlife of the colony, Eastlake thought it appropriate to offer information on migration patterns and an exhaustive list of observable butterfly species. Absent are the maps and illustrations which became a feature of travel guides – for Eastlake, the discerning visitor did not need such niceties because travel was a form of intellectual nourishment: “thus travel becomes a means of knowledge and an incontestably superior method of instruction and improvement” (p. i). Elite anxieties about ending up in a bad part of town abound, with visitors advised that “there are not many Chinese restaurants of any great respectability in Victoria, the ‘Hung Fa Low’ being the only one patronised by visitors of the better class” (p. 23).

Unlike the cheap pamphlets found in the typical lobby today, Golden Age hotels provided visitors with guidebooks to help them make the most of their time in bustling destinations such as Beijing and Shanghai. One of the earliest known guidebooks to Shanghai is that provided by guests at the city’s famous Hotel Metropole which demonstrates the emergence of the familiar Golden Age guidebook form: period adverts for shops and services of interest to visitors, a large folding map of the location, and a warm, courteous tone. The guide presents the Metropole as a safe haven for Europeans who might venture out into the unknown in the day but yearn for an escape “from the bustle and din of the City, and more particularly from the weirdly unpleasant noises and antique odours” (p. 17). It advertises the services of a resident barber, a bar stocked with champagne, beer, and cocktails, 75 bedrooms, and livery stables.

Collectors prize travel guides for the light they shed on the concerns of visitors, and this guide suggests that, for early 20th-century visitors to Shanghai, obtaining clean water was a major preoccupation. Besides advertisements for such businesses as the Shanghai Horse Bazaar, Robinson Pianos, and the Italian goods importer F. Venturi, it devotes significant space to promoting assorted brands of bottled water – “Tansan natural tonic table water – you all want it!” – to help visitors survive the notoriously hot Shanghai summer.

Above all other forms of transport, railways opened up the world to Golden Age travelers, and attractive pamphlets and small booklets were on hand at stations and major hotels. This particular copy of Imperial Railways of North China: Peking-Mukden Line, a guide to the first Chinese railway enterprise, was used by a foreign tourist adventuring across China at the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. Its array of information on fares, baggage allowances, on board facilities, timetables, and connections allows us to piece together the complex infrastructure which facilitated elite travel. By now, illustrations and a map are almost an obligatory presence, with the large number of in-text visuals showcasing tourist hotspots such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and the summer resort at Shanhaiguan, all accessible along the railway route. Guides made great souvenirs for those back home and examples with inscriptions are especially desirable. This copy is pleasingly inscribed on the inside front cover, “10 June 1912. Here I am at Leichuang railway station – a very little place. Nothing doing but I have a roof over my head. Please forward to E. Love WSB”.

The now-fare first edition of Emil Sigmund Fischer’s Guide to Peking and its Environs (1909) is an outstanding example of the visual appeal of Golden Age tourist guides. In addition to its 31 plates, it contains no less than three detailed maps and plans of Beijing and its surroundings. Fischer took the idea of the fold-out map to a new level. The city is represented to a granular level, with dozens of places of interest – not just the most popular sights – identified in both English and Chinese. The fold-out plan of the city’s famous Legation Quarter is equally impressive, and also demonstrates the complex network of businesses that sprung up in major Chinese cities in the late 19th century to provide foreign visitors with every conceivable comfort. Like other examples in the genre, Guide to Peking and its Environs is full of the kind of pointed observation that still make for charming reading today: “it is hoped that when visiting tombs and places of interest in and about Peking, or in China generally, visitors will refrain from writing or in any way defacing the buildings and other places of interest” (p. 8).

Written by Dr Matthew Wills, Asia Specialist

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In January 1788, after an eight-month voyage from Plymouth, England, a fleet of ships reached Botany Bay, on the east coast of New South Wales. The flotilla of two Royal Navy ships, six convict transports, and three store ships eventually found safe harbour at Port Jackson, some twelve miles to the north.

Their task was to conduct an unprecedented experiment in both penal and colonial history. They were there to establish a new community using convict labour, the first step in Britain’s colonization of Australia.

Since the seventeenth century, the Admiralty had been keen to publish accurate records of all important naval expeditions. The impressive quarto and atlas volumes recording Captain Cook’s three voyages round the world offered one model for publications that give us the first sights of Australia through European eyes. They combine the habits of accuracy cultivated by hydrographers and keepers of naval logbooks with more personal observations, as well as illustrations by artists taken along to record events.

The First Fleet generated six major accounts published within a decade. These mean that Australians, uniquely, have detailed written records of the history of their nation from the first day of settlement. Scholars regard these six books as the founding accounts of any collection of Australiana.

Captain Watkin Tench entered the marine corps in 1776 and fought in the American War of Independence. Hearing of the proposed settlement in New South Wales, he volunteered for a tour of service and sailed aboard the Charlotte. His first book, A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay (1789) is the earliest authentic account of the colony. An octavo volume without illustrations, it lacks the heft of the Cook model, but Tench captures the rush of events in an eminently readable style. It was an immediate success and went through three editions in the year. The first edition is the rarest of the First Fleet journals.

 

Tench’s account competed in the London bookshops with An Authentic Journal of the Expedition under Commodore Phillips to Botany Bay (1789), attributed to “an Officer”, a journalistic compilation of various materials, much of it originally printed in the London Chronicle newspaper. Another relatively inexpensive octavo, it lacks authority by comparison with Tench’s authentic, coherent, and detailed account, though it was probably published two days earlier, winning the race to be the first book on the settlement in New South Wales.

 

The surgeon general to the new colony was John White. His account was published as Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales (1790), a handsome quarto with an engraved title page and 65 fine engraved plates, most made in England from specimens sent back by White. The flora and fauna depicted in the plates are described on the engraved title as “nondescript”, meaning not that they were unremarkable, but that they had never been described.

 

The journal of Governor Phillip’s successor, Captain John Hunter, was published as An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1793), another large quarto, with an attractive engraved title page and sixteen plates and maps, including a frontispiece portrait of Hunter. The book is found in two forms: the standard issue on thick laid paper, the special issue on superfine wove paper of the same size.

 

Watkin Tench’s second book, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, was published in the same year as Hunter’s Journal. It is a grander production than his first, in quarto format, with a folding map giving details of the early expeditions of discovery to the south and to the west, some of which Tench himself had led.

 

 

 

 

The last of the six First Fleet journals is the most detailed. Like Tench, David Collins had seen action in the American War of Independence. He travelled with the First Fleet as deputy Judge Advocate of the marine detachment and of the colony. When the Second Fleet arrived with instructions that the marine detachment should return to England or join the New South Wales Corps, he stayed out of loyalty to Governor Phillip, not departing New South Wales until 1796. His first chronicle of events in the new colony was published as An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (1798), another quarto in the classic Admiralty manner, with two charts, eighteen plates, and four in-text engravings.

 

These six books are the foundation of Australiana, though there are many contemporary pamphlets, periodicals, and pirated accounts from the period that collectors also seek out. Anyone on that quest is well-advised to arm themselves with a copy of Jonathan Wantrup’s Australian Rare Books (2nd ed., 2 vols, Australian Book Auctions), the most thorough book on the subject and a delight to read.

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Ben Houston has enjoyed a rewarding career in the rare book trade for over twenty years. Since joining Peter Harrington over ten years ago, he has witnessed the company grow from its fledgling beginnings to celebrating a decade at its flagship store on Dover Street. Ben’s tenure at Dover Street has been marked by numerous memorable moments and significant contributions in his role as Sales Director. Here, he shares some of the highlights from his journey.

Can you tell us a little about your journey into the rare book trade and how your responsibilities have evolved over time?

Around twenty years ago I had recently graduated, and took what I suppose would now be called a ‘zero hours contract’ at the (in)famous second-hand bookshop, Notting Hill Book & Comic Exchange (MVE).

There I found myself surrounded by the most incredible mix of artists, writers, intellectuals, scholars, dropouts and eccentrics, all of whom were deeply passionate in their varied interests and fields, and it was there I realised that the world of books was for me.

I wasn’t at MVE long, but it taught me the beginnings of what makes a book more interesting than just the words on the page and, perhaps more importantly, introduced me to a fascinating group of collectors, experts and the odd book dealer.

At the time I had a friend working at the rare book dealer consortium Biblion in Gray’s Antique Market. Biblion acting as a London ‘shop front’ for many book dealers throughout the UK, renting cabinet space and exhibiting a rotating stock in a central London location. I started working there doing, what I came to understand was the role of everyone entering the trade, everything that needed doing!

It was invaluable experience, I learnt the running of a small shop, was able to handle, and sell, rare books that I had only heard of at that point (and many I hadn’t!) and was exposed to huge swathes of the rare book trade, from some of the best dealers to some of the world’s largest collectors. When the longstanding manager Stephen Poole left to open his own shop, I took over as shop manager and spent the next few years immersing myself further in the complex and fascinating world of rare books.

When the time came to leave Biblion I packed up my bags and moved one street down to Simon Finch and Oliver Wood’s Brook Street shop. Simon was the first to show me what the rare book world looked like at the very top end, the books were exceptional, the clients were world renowned, and the lengths one had to go to to get both were enormous. At Simon’s I experienced the extraordinary ingenuity, bravery, passion and knowledge required to work with the rarest books and the best collectors.

For where I moved next, I am forever grateful to the esteemed rare book dealer, and wonderful human, Paul Foster who, 14 years ago, advised me to approach Pom Harrington to work for him at Peter Harrington. We were 12 people when I joined in 2010 and I feel extremely privileged to have witnessed the company grow over that time and to have handled some jaw-droppingly exceptional books along the way!

After being at Peter Harrington for over a decade you must have some memorable moments to share. Can you recall any that are particularly fond? 

Too many to mention! But the opening of our Dover Street shop will always be a very fond memory. The opening party saw many friends, dealers, collectors and colleagues all celebrating together in the freshly painted, decorated and stocked shop. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the air, we felt welcomed by the trade around us, several of whom had sent flowers and plants to welcome us, and there was the feeling of not only a new exciting venture for Peter Harrington but also an important signal of the vitality of a psychical shop in the face of what many saw as the threat of the online market place.

This year marks 10 years since the opening of our Dover Street bookshop. After experiencing its fledgling beginnings, do you look back and think that a lot has been achieved over the years?

The promise of that opening night was wonderfully realised in the years that followed. Of course, opening a rare book shop in Mayfair at a time when the high street was reportedly on death’s door was a risk, but Dover Street quickly become a stop on the central London rare book shop circuit and a convenient location for our overseas clients to visit us when in London. The friendly, family atmosphere so familiar to all our regulars at the Fulham Road shop was vividly apparent in Dover Street from the very beginning and, as our ‘Dover Street regulars’ grew, that feeling of family went grew with them. As the manager in those early years and now as a regular feature on our cosy back table I’m immensely proud to have been a part of that.

If you can narrow it down, is there a book on our shelves at the moment that you’d most like to keep for yourself? 

I insist to anyone who will listen that ‘I am not a collector’, although my groaning bookshelves may suggest otherwise! But, if a caretaker were required, I would loving care for our complete collection of View magazine. A stunning primary record of the vast avant-garde art and literary world in those vital years between 1940 and 1947, recording the art world as it relocated from its traditional home in Paris to the bubbling new world of New York. Each issue contains stunning revelations of those epoch changing explorations as they happened and, despite its modest production techniques, each issue is a glorious artwork.

Being Sales Director, you must speak to so many different customers about a plethora of subjects. Whether it be counterculture or travel & exploration, is there a subject that particularly absorbs you? 

I’m a proud generalist and passionate about a diverse range of subjects and I’m very fortunate that my job allows me to engage with collectors across a wide range of fields, it means I’m always learning and always finding something new to be excited about. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time in regions of the Arab world which has led to a passionate interest in Arab history and culture, I’m fortunate to work closely with our travel, science and literature specialists, as well as important collectors in the field, to expand my knowledge through their expertise. This hands-on, immersive, approach has been vital to understanding the books we handle within their ‘real world’ context, and I have found it enormously beneficial in bridging the gap between the academic understanding of a rare book and its more elusive properties as an object of cultural heft.

One particular interest of mine over the past year or so has been researching the historical effect of new technology on how culture (in its many forms) has been disseminated.  It’s a fascinating area and has led to some superb acquisitions across a number of subject areas. I’ll say no more and leave that to a catalogue we will be launching at the end of the year!

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Interview by Winifred Hewitt-Wright

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