Worcester Doris (4 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Included. 1st Edition. Publishers Cloth in Original Price Clipped Dustwrapper. A Couple of Closed Tears to Dustwrapper. Some Wear and Soiling. A Very Good Book. No Inscriptions. PBFA Member. We Welcome Direct Contact With Our Customers. Contact Neil Ewart Rare Books If You Require Any Further Information or Images.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. No Jacket. Hbk, 4to, 37pp, lacks dj (as issued?), illustr b+w conte crayon sketches, donor' inscn on fep, very good, clean boards and tight text, shows very slight age-toning and an exceptionally rare and well-presented copy.

First Edition. First edition, large 8vo (approx. 11" x 7¾"), pp. [38]; illustrated throughout with black & white pencil sketches by Worcester; fine in original black cloth-backed orange paper-covered boards stamped in black, and preserving a very good pictorial dust jacket which is a little soiled, rubbed and worn at the extremities. Doris Worcester was married to G. R. G. Worcester who was an officer of the River Inspectorate, and for 30 years was employed in the Chinese Maritime Customs where he produced a total of five volumes on the watercraft of the Yangtze. When Japanese forces invaded Shanghai in December 1941, the Worcesters were detained and put into an internment camp. A publisher's note in the second edition of this work (Hong Kong 1970) indicates that this first edition (1941) which had been printed in Shanghai in November, was seized and destroyed before most of the edition was even put on sale. Hence its relative scarcity. Only seven holdings in OCLC: Cornell, Los Angeles Public, New York Public, University of New Orleans, and Missouri in the U.S., plus National Library of Australia and SOAS in London.

First edition, first printing, signed by the author on the title page, of this collection of sketches from her time in the Chinese wartime capital of Chongqing (Chungking). She was interned by the Japanese shortly after publication and died in 1945, making signed copies inevitably scarce. Doris Worcester (1893-1945) spent a considerable amount of time in China alongside her husband, G. R. G. Worcester, who worked for the Chinese Maritime Customs Service for three decades. After the beginning of the Second World War in Asia, Worcester spent 17 months in Chongqing, the new capital of the Republic of China after the government was forced to abandon Nanjing. The present work showcases her pictorial impressions of Chongqing's everyday inhabitants, featuring sketches of tradesman, weavers, street sellers, and a Taoist mendicant. It is an excellent example of a longstanding genre of Western publishing on China in which illustrations of typical street figures are paired with explanatory text. In December 1941, Japanese forces invaded Shanghai's international settlement and the Worcesters were sent to an internment camp where they saw out the war. Doris Worcester died shortly after her release, and Some Chungking Types was reprinted in 1970 alongside her husband's The Floating Population in China: An Illustrated Record of the Junkmen and their Boats on Sea and River. This copy is from the library of the sinologist Keith Stevens (1926-2015), with his decorative bookplate to the front pastedown. Stevens, a British scholar-diplomat, was an authority on Chinese religion and iconography, publishing 36 articles and 2 books on the subject, including the definitive Chinese Gods: The Unseen World of Spirits and Demons (1997). Fittingly, his bookplate shows the Buddhist deity Wei Tuo, the "protector of books" and a guardian "against fire, destructive insects and dishonest borrowers." Quarto. Illustrations throughout after crayon sketches by the author. Original black cloth-backed orange paper boards, title to front cover in black. With dust jacket. Slight rubbing to extremities, light offsetting internally. A near-fine copy in the very good dust jacket with a few marks, several small chips, and toning along the creases.