Perle

1933 · 163377 — London: Methuen & Co. Ltd 1933. First British edition first impression with the scarce dust jacket of the first full translation into English of one of the most widely read novels in any language. The product of five years of scholarship Buck's translation was first published in the US in 1933 in two volumes with the present edition following just a few months later. All Men are Brothers tells of 108 heroic outlaws led by Song Jiang who establish a fellowship on the Liangshan mountain in Shandong and relentlessly uphold values of kinship and virtue in a world dominated by corruption and evil-doers. The novel provides "a vast social panorama whose characters include nearly all the types and occupations of China. Priests and courtesans march across the pages along with merchants scholars tavern keepers politicians and minor officials farmers fishermen slaves aristocrats and children. There is even a succession of mythical animals. At the center of the action is the robber band enforcing rough justice in a bad world" Conn p. 137. Provenance: from the library of Oliver Russell Moore 1917-2011 with his bookplate on the front pastedown. Moore was a British naval officer who served in China including at Weihaiwei and Shanghai during the 1930s. Following the Second World War in which he served in multiple theatres he was posted as the naval liaison for the Hong Kong dockyard - a posting which lasted until 1950. Octavo. With lithographed frontispiece after an illustration from a Chinese edition of the text. Original black cloth spine lettered in English and Chinese in gilt top edge gilt. With illustrated dust jacket. Christmas 1933 bookplate of one W. Allan on front free endpaper. Cloth and contents clean front board slightly bowed joints beginning to split at foot; jacket price-clipped losses at spine ends several splits professionally repaired on verso: a very good copy in acceptable jacket. Peter Conn Pearl Buck: a Cultural Biography 1998. hardcover