PAGODA SHADOWS : STUDIES FROM LIFE IN CHINA

Boston, Mass: W. G. Corthell, 1884. First Edition. Hardcover. Good Plus. 12mo.pp.[2], xv, 285, [3]. Decorated dark-mustard color cloth boards, in black stamped design, with a seven-storey gilt pagoda to front board. Gilt lettering to spine, ruled in black. General shelfwear and rubbing to extremities, and still very tightly bound. Previous owner's name to front pastedown. Stab-holes (for stitching) visible along both front and rear hinges. Frontis of eight Chinesemen and women, engraved by Russell and Richardson of Boston, and 15 additional illustrations throughout. At its face, appears to be a standard, nineteenth-century culture-theft by a "superior" Christian, who slums amongst the fascinating "heathens".

Chapters include (but are not limited to): The Status of women; Child-Life in Cathay; Foot-Binding; Habitations; The Inconvenience of Heathenism; Spiritism; The Kitchen God; The Origin of a Fete; Buddhist Nuns; Loan-Associations; Native Female Evangelists; Orchid Loses Seven-Tenths of Her Sorrow; Love's Purposes; The Herb that Grew on a Pirate Island; How a Familiar Spirit was Ejected from a Household; The Pillars of the Church at South Spur; Language, Literature and Folk-Lore.

"These studies were made during a residence of ten years in China, with a knowledge of the language of the people, and an opportunity for close observation of their social customs. The autobiographies and the stories are exact translations of verbal narrations given to the author in the Swatow dialect." (from Preface).