Search Results: Authors starting with J from John Randall (Books of Asia)

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947. First edition, 4to, pp.xl, 73, 169 plates. An internally very good copy in original cloth. Upper board creased and slightly finger stained, corners bumped. The scarce first volume recording the results of Janse's three archaeological excavations in Indo-China from 1934 to 1939. Robert Ture Olov Janse (1892-1985), a Swedish archaeologist, is widely lauded as the man who brought organisation and respectability to Southeast Asian archaeology. His excavations were largely focused on brick tombs of the Han period in Tonkin and North and Central Annam, particularly Dong-so'n. Of the dozens of tombs uncovered one was one of the largest subterranean brick buildings in Indo-China (tomb no.2 of Nghi-ve) and several were completely undisturbed, leading to rich funerary deposits. Some later tombs and locations were contemporary with the Sung and T'ang dynasty. The second and third volumes published several years later are not present.

Augsburg: Christoph Mang, 1615. First edition. Small 4to (20.5 x 16 cm), pp.[xii], 111, (110)-646 [but 648 as p.111-2 numbered twice], [8, index], [2, errata, colophon], with the engraved title by Wolfgang Kilian, incorporating Ricci's map of China flanked by portraits of the author and St Francis Xavier. A very good copy bound in modern quarter calf, marbled boards. All edges blue. But lacking the folding plan and the final blank leaf; faint blue stain to fore-edge of initial leaves. Contents otherwise clean and fresh. This eyewitness narrative of the Jesuit mission to Peking became the 'most influential description of China to appear during the first half of the seventeenth century.... It includes a wealth of information about China in the chapters describing geography, people, laws, government, religion, learning, commerce and... provided European readers with more, better organized, and more accurate information about China than was ever before available' (Lach & Van Kley I… Read More