Japon

1861 · 173654 — London.: Richard Bentley. 1861. First edition hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece and black and white text illustrations i-xxxii 350pp with a final advertisment leaf of Bentley's Standard Novels 19.4 x 13cm original blind-stamped blue cloth boards gilt-lettered spine dulled and gilt vignette of a ship with pennants a flutter to the top board slight spotting mainly limited to the endpapers and age toning to the edges of the text old varnish to the boards obscuring gilt lettering to spine and dulling the gilt to the ship vignette corners tender but a good clean example of a title scarce on the market. Written in the year Japan opened its doors to foreign trade but published three years later by the first British Consul to Nagasaki Christopher Pemberton Hodgson he also served as French Consul. As well as giving a key survey of a landmark period including the structure of society religion and Japanese attitudes to the West Hodgson importantly includes a catalogue of Japanese plants with an index prepared by the eminent botanist Sir William Hooker the work's dedicatee and his own on natural history. Pemberton noted his keen interest in botany and geology in an earlier work written after a turbulent five years on the Darling Downs in Australia. The present work also includes a lengthy chapter by Pemberton's wife taken from letters to her mother noting her experiences and impressions. . Richard Bentley. hardcover