THOMSON, John (1837-1921). Illustrations of China and its People. A Series of Two Hundred Photographs, with Letterpress Descriptive of the Placed and People Represented. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, 1873-1874.

4 volumes, folio (470 x 350 mm). 218 collotype images on 96 plates. (Vol. I title-page becoming with some minor chipping and a short tear in the gutter margin Vol. I, some very minor spotting to a few leaves.) Original brown cloth gilt (some minor chipping or losses to a few extremities, corners slightly bumped, a few hinges starting). Provenance: Paget Library, The Red Triangle Club, Chichester (bookplates).

FIRST EDITION, ONE OF THE MOST EXTENSIVE VISUAL RECORDS OF MID-19TH-CENTURY CHINA, likely one of only 750 sets published. Sampson Low, the publisher, patented a form of collotype printing called "autotype" by which Thomson's photographs were beautifully reproduced to maintain the high level of resolution in the original albumen prints. "My design in the accompanying work is to present a series of pictures of China and its people, such as shall convey an accurate impression of the country I traversed as well as of the arts, usages, and manners which prevail in different provinces of the Empire" (Introduction).

Between 1870 and 1872, Thomson "undertook four distinct journeys, up the north branch of the Pearl River, up the River Min to the area around Foochow (Fuzhou), to Peking (Beijing), and finally up the great Yangtze (Yangzi) River. The photographs taken on these journeys form one of the most extensive photographic surveys of any region taken in the nineteenth century. The range and depth of his photographic vision mark Thomson out as one of the most important travel photographers" (DNB).

Property from the Dorros Family Collection