Maskee, First Edition (6 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Illustrated by Lois V. Schaeffer (illustrator). First edition (350 copies). Smells a bit musty, gift inscription (dated 1967) on front paste-down, foxing to endpapers, else very good in tan cloth. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Hartford, CT: The Prospect Press, 1938. First edition, 1938, limited to350 copies, printed at the Sign of the Stone Book by The Prospect Press. Journals of Ruth Bradford who traveled to and lived in China during the Victorian period. Full page plate of the author, additional small illustrations throughout. Tan sailcloth with color illustration mounted on the front cover, 162 pages plus colophon. Very good condition with modest darkeneing to the edges of the covers, good hinges, sound text block, clean pages, no names or other markings. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition, no publisher or date noted, but from the 1930's. Cartoon style book in concertina binding with green silk brocade covered boards in a bamboo design; 19cm x 26.5cm. 22 panels, comprising title page, second page blank plus 20 pages of hand coloured cartoons. Verso of all boards blank. Friedrich Schiff (1908-1968) was an Austrian Jewish cartoonist and long-time resident of Shanghai where he was a keen observer of the people and life of the city in the war-torn late 1930 s. Printed in an unspecified limited edition, this book numbered I201. Hand coloured and signed by the artist to the titlepage. In Very Good condition, page edges gently tanned, silk covers faded to edges.

Condition: Very Good. First Edition. JAZZ, VICE, and VANISHED SHANGHAI A vibrant and satirical visual record of pre-WWII Shanghai nightlife and social friction, hand-colored and signed by the Austrian caricaturist Friedrich Schiff. This accordion-style sketchbook captures the collision of East and West in the final years of the International Settlement, documenting the interactions of sailors, 'taxi-dancers', and local residents with a 'no-holds-barred' wit. Schiff's work serves as a primary visual ethnography of a vanished colonial world, produced in the city's legendary 'Yellow Hall' just before the Japanese occupation reshaped the region forever. KEY FEATURES +++ Visuals: 21 plates of caricatural illustrations, each individually hand-colored by the artist. Includes the iconic 'Paramount' dance hall and Filipino jazz band scenes. +++ Binding: Original decorated silk-brocade covers featuring a stamped bamboo motif. Bound as a 'leporello' (fan-folded) allowing for a continuous panoramic display. +++ Content: Satirical sketches of Shanghai's 'joints', nightclubs, and street life, capturing the 'Barflies' and 'sing-song girls' of the 1930s. +++ Imprint: Shanghai; Friedrich Schiff. 1939. Numbered 570 in an unspecified limited edition. +++ Specs: Quarto; 10.5 x 7.5 inches. 21 leaves. +++ Design: Features Schiff's unique signature 'sketch-hand' style, noted for its economy of line and expressive cross-cultural observation. +++ Scholarship: Documents the 'International' caste system and the seedier cross-cultural undercurrents of pre-war China. +++ Signed by the author/artist on the title page as issued. CONDITION -- Very Good+. +++ The Book: The internal leaves are tight and square with light, even age-toning. There is minor offset from the hand-colored drawings onto the facing pages, which is common and expected for this format. +++ The Silk: The original silk-brocade covers are handsome and well-preserved, showing only minor handling wear and light rubbing at the extremities. A remarkably crisp example of a fragile, overseas production. Historical Significance: Friedrich Schiff was the preeminent cartoonist of Interwar Shanghai, spending 18 years documenting the city's poignant and often ridiculous cultural collisions. Maskee-a Pidgin-English term meaning 'never mind' or 'it doesn't matter'-perfectly encapsulates the reckless hedonism of a city living on borrowed time. Schiff's 'sketch-hand' captured everyone from 'sing-song' girls to colonial police with a wit that continues to influence modern Asian graphic artists. This volume is a primary visual source for the Art Deco period in the East, predating the abrupt end of Old Shanghai brought on by the Japanese occupation and later Revolution. SUBJECTS: Shanghai, China, Caricatures and Cartoons, Social Conditions, 1930s Nightlife, Jazz Age, International Settlement, Signed Limited Edition, Art Deco, Leporello, Asian History. Signed.

Signed limited edition, number A430 of an unknown edition signed by the cartoonist on the title page. Schiff's pen skewers the modern decadence of Shanghai's concessions and the cast of expatriates and "modern girls" who frequent them. Friedrich Schiff (1908-1968) fled Nazi persecution in his native Austria and settled in Shanghai in the 1930s. "He started his career by providing illustrations to Kelly and Walsh, the largest English-language book publishers in China at the time. He then provided cartoons for the Tientsin Times, but it was in hedonistic Shanghai that he found his oeuvre and started to satirise the foreign community. [Schiff captured] a new Shanghai of modernist architecture, avant-garde styles, high fashion and jazz" (French, p. 162). Paul French, Through the Looking Glass: China's Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao, 2009; Arthur Hacker, China Illustrated: Western Views of the Middle Kingdom, 2012. Quarto, concertina-style. Original blue brocade covers, 20 hand-coloured sheets with captions and cartoons. Covers and contents bright: a fine copy.

Signed limited edition, number 217 of an unknown edition signed by the cartoonist on the title page. Schiff's pen skewers the modern decadence of Shanghai's concessions and the cast of expatriates and "modern girls" who frequent them. Friedrich Schiff (1908-1968) fled Nazi persecution in his native Austria and settled in Shanghai in the 1930s. "He started his career by providing illustrations to Kelly and Walsh, the largest English-language book publishers in China at the time. He then provided cartoons for the Tientsin Times, but it was in hedonistic Shanghai that he found his oeuvre and started to satirise the foreign community. [Schiff captured] a new Shanghai of modernist architecture, avant-garde styles, high fashion and jazz" (French, p. 162). Paul French, Through the Looking Glass: China's Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao, 2009; Arthur Hacker, China Illustrated: Western Views of the Middle Kingdom, 2012. Quarto, concertina-style. Original brownish orange brocade covers, 20 hand-coloured sheets with captions and cartoons. Covers lightly worn and bowed, panels foxed at margin, bump to top edge, illustrations almost entirely unaffected: a very good copy.