Hodnett Patrick (1 results)

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to H. J. Nevile, a merchant who worked for the Yokohama-based Marcus & Ginsburg. One of the many colourful characters who ventured east in the 19th century, Hodnett (b.1834) first set foot in China in 1860 and found work as a "junk agent" and then (briefly) with the Imperial Maritime Customs Service. In the late 1860s, he moved to Japan, lured by Yokohama's economic opportunities, and spent the next two decades trading, exploring, and seeking out trouble in Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Chinese waters. Hodnett describes these experiences in this anthology of short and often witty yarns, "though he is perfectly aware that they will interest but a very few" (preface). His chapter titles offer a flavour: "A Circum-Navigation of Yesso", "Hairbreadth Escape on the Yangstze", "Running the Blockade of Canton", and "Pirates and Cannibals Meet". Nevile (also spelt "Neville") appears in commercial directories for China & Japan from the early 1890s onwards. As his career developed, he went into business on his own. By the 1920s, his company is recorded as being located in Harbin, China. We have traced no copies in institutional libraries. WorldCat shows several holding a related, but slightly longer, publication by Hodnett, entitled Tales of adventure on land and sea in the Far East (c.1896). Octavo. Original blue diagonal grain cloth, front cover lettered in gilt. Binding soiled and rubbed, front inner hinge consolidated: very good.