Sharp James Bowman, Used (1 results)

Condition: Very good. 12¾" x 8¾". Quarter leather over marbled boards; stenciled/painted monogram to front cover. Pp. [6], 351 (approximately 70,000 words). Very good with moderate wear to boards which is heavy at edges and corners; internally near fine or better. This is a long and meticulously kept journal by an Englishman, James Bowman Sharp, which covers 16 years of his life. The first 100 pages document Sharp's time in China and the Far East. He writes well, with exceptionally detailed passages regarding all he experienced, and his trip to the Far East has approximately 40 miniature watercolors and 19 pen and ink illustrations. We think it possible Sharp intended the book for publication as it has a detailed index as well as subject headers on most pages. Sharp was apparently in China for a spice trading company for whom he was indentured for seven years as of 1857. He was clearly a talented artist and apparently was also a word worker, with some of his works exhibited in 1881. Sharp went to China during a significant period with respect to its relationship with England. In the 1860s, Britain's relationship with China was defined by the aftermath of the Second Opium War, which significantly increased British influence and power in China. The Treaty of Tientsin (1858) and the Convention of Peking (1860), resulting from the war, forced China to open more treaty ports, legalize the opium trade, and grant Britain control over parts of Kowloon. This period saw the establishment of British consulates and a legation in Beijing, further solidifying British presence and control. Also, as of 1862, China was experiencinig a period of intense internal conflict involving various rebellions and uprisings. The most prominent of these was the Taiping Rebellion, which was already well underway. Additionally, the Nian Rebellion, the Dungan Revolt, and the Yunnan Rebellion were also active, all contributing to the widespread unrest and instability in China during that time. Unsurprisingly, Sharp regularly shares news of conflict, and lived in a China that was in a constant state of flux. The journal begins April 28, 1862 with a watercolor of a French ship on the Red Sea taken from the P&O Navigation Company's steamship Bengal. His first entry: "As impressions made on the mind are so soon obliterated unless permanently fixed at the time, I commence these notes, hoping that a voyage to China, etc., may afford a few incidents worth recording, interesting (to the writer at least) to look back upon. This being about the first day in which I am able to write since leaving Southhampton owing to sea sickness and exhaustion. I must fill in from memory the incidents of the last nine days." So he went back to Saturday, April 19, 1862 when he traveled from London to Southampton to board the Ripon which reached Gibraltar on the 25th. He provided a small painting of the shoreline where he wrote, "the rocks shown have a very fine appearance especially when the water is lighted up and the lamps are reflected in the sea below." At Gibraltar, the ship took on coal and "the Spaniards that assisted looked like the most cutthroat rascals though of course coal haulers rarely show to advantage anywhere." On the 28th, Sharp passed the Galite Islands, near Tunisia, and included a painting of its coastline. On the 30th he visited Malta and provided a detailed description of its architecture, streets and shops. On May 3rd, he reached Alexandria in Egypt where he caught a train to Cairo that ultimately derailed and he shared the harrowing tale. In Cairo, where he included seven watercolors of locals as well as one of a fully outfitted donkey: "we saw a funeral procession; the corpse was carried in a dead box, covered with a white cloth and the attendants walked along singing a sort of doleful howl. We also passed a marriage procession in the Jewish quarter. The bride walked along covered with a long red bag put over her head like an extinguisher which reached down to her feet, her bridesmaids fawning over her as she went along." As of May 9th Sharp left Cairo and proceeded down the Red Sea; on the 11th he reached Aden in Yemen and had this to say about the locals: "the Natives have many of them long reddish hair, very much like sheepskin mat, others have no hair at all and very strongly resemble monkeys of a rich sort of copper color. They are all famous swimmers . . ." On May 21st they came in sight of Ceylon and May 29th found Sharp in Singapore where he vividly described his time at a fish market. This section has lovely illustrations showing shorelines in Singapore and China. Sharp arrived in Hong Kong on June 4th and reached Shanghai on the 11th . His first impressions of Shanghai: "The country is exceedingly flat and for miles round Shanghai has evidently been little better than a mud swamp until the last few years. There are but few roads out of this where people can walk or ride and these are for the most part lined with Chinese graves or uncovered coffins, it is by no means an uncommon sight to see corpses lying by the road side. The population is rapidly increasing on account of the influx of Chinamen from the different parts of the county visited by the rebels. In many cases they had to flee for their lives, leaving houses of property behind them and arrive in Shanghai almost in a state of destitution; often walking all day in the hot sun they drop down dead from exhaustion and very frequently remain some time without being buried. The variety of smells arising from different causes is extraordinary." He spent the next couple of years living in Shanghai. In early September he reported on rebel activity in the area: "the country people had flocked in great numbers to escape from their merciless enemies, many of them looking as if in a state of starvation and destitution . . . the Rebels, numbering 4 or 5,000 had erected a temporary floating bridge over the SooChow Creek and our troops were a little too late to cut off their retreat." On the.