HONG KONG.- Revived for 2024, Firsts Hong Kong brings the former China in Print fair under the Firsts umbrella in the impressive location of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum from 6 to 8 December.

Firsts Hong Kong will bring together a curated group of international dealers showing a wide variety of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, prints, and works on paper relating to Asia and beyond. Almost 30 dealers from the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Australia, USA, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands will be showing some of the highlights specifically selected for the fair.

One of the most important photo books of its time is John Thomson's Illustrations of China and its people, which includes a series of 200 superb photographs of China with letterpress descriptive of the places and people represented. This first edition (1873-1874) in four volumes will be on Shapero Rare Books' stand and carries an asking price of £30,000. John Thomson spent ten years in East Asia and produced several different works starting with his “Antiquities of Cambodia” in 1867. His documentation of China was the result of five years’ work during which he covered some 5000 miles. He followed the northern coastal route between Macao and Beijing via Taiwan, stopping not only at the great ports but also venturing inland and making the first European record of some cities and areas. Although the photographs in the present work are collotypes, they are of a very high standard and provide an excellent record of the monuments, scenery, customs, and ceremonies of China.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books will be bringing the first and only Dutch edition of the first atlas of China made in Europe. Novus Atlas Sinensis from 1655 by Jean Blaeu, an exceptional work based on the travels of Father Martino Martini (1614-1661), a Jesuit missionary in China who made use of "Chinese materials from a much earlier date. In 1654, Martini's ship was captured by the Dutch and he was sent to Amsterdam. Martini persuaded Blaeu to engrave and publish his maps and descriptions of the Chinese empire with Martini's own account of his travels in the Chinese provinces, over a period of roughly ten years. The 17 maps are noteworthy for their accuracy, remarkable for the time, but also for their highly decorative cartouches featuring vignettes depicting regional dress, activities and animals. Martini's Novus Atlas Sinensis marked the beginning of a flood of illustrated works and translations on China in the 17th and 18th centuries (£28,000).

Cornelius De Jode’s rare circular map of China, China Regnum, from 1593, shows the kingdom of China with some intriguing illustrations of East Asian life: fish-catching cormrants; a fishing boat with a chimney-topped cabin with a pen attached to the side sheltering domestic fowl; the worship of a triple-headed deity; and the famous wind carts depicted on many early European maps of the region. The map is based upon the work of the Portuguese Jorge de Barbuda, whose map of China appeared in the work of de Jode’s competitor, Ortelius, in 1584 (£27,000).

And from more recent times is a rare map of Hong Kong drawn by Sung Chun Wa from c.1922-1926. All major settlements are depicted and named in both English and Chinese, as are major roads and railways, and several areas of proposed reclamation; elevation is depicted with hachures and height of mountains in feet (£6,000) - image at top.

Among the highlights will be a first edition in Chinese and first printing of Adam Smith's landmark treatise, Yuan Fu (Wealth of Nations), translated by the prominent Qing dynasty literatus Yan Fu from 1902. Smith’s ideas were at the centre of late-Qing discussions concerning self-strengthening, national rejuvenation, and the future of China. Wealth of Nations, alongside other Western theories, offered much to Chinese officials and intellectuals preoccupied with understanding how China could adapt to modern realities and return to its traditional dominance in the face of increasingly aggressive foreign powers.

Yan Fu began his translation in 1897, convinced that “the system of economic liberalism developed in the book ... and demonstrated in the living example of Victorian England [was] a system admirably designed to achieve the wealth and power of the state”. Shortly after publication of Yan’s translation, the famous scholar Liang Qichao extolled him as “a man whose Chinese and Western learning is unparalleled in China”, and a bust of Yan sits in the entrance foyer of the library of Beijing University. The eight volumes will be available on the Peter Harrington Rare Books stand and carry an asking price of £25,000.

Other highlights on the stand will be A Grammar of the Chinese Language by Robert Morrison (1815), which is the first edition of the first Chinese grammar written in English, completed by Morrison two years before the publication of Joshua Marshman’s Clavis Sinica (£9,000), while another manuscript for learning Chinese from 1900 by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation carries a price tag of £3,000.

A first edition, association copy, of Esop's Fables by Aesop and translated by Robert Thom in 1840 is inscribed by William Jardine, one of the three “generous patrons” named in the dedication, on the front wrapper, “R. Goff Esqr. 105 Piccadilly from the compiler with Mr. Jardine’s compliments”. Jardine co-founded the successful trading firm Jardine, Matheson & Co. and this Chinese translation was intended as a primer to help the growing number of British students of Chinese working for the company. Each page offers three columns of English, Chinese characters, and romanized Chinese. For each fable, Thom dictated the Chinese to his teacher, who brushed them in a legible hand. According to the introduction, the volume was the first time Chinese wooden blocks and European metal type were used side-by-side during printing (£15,00).

Maggs will be bringing a first edition of the monthly journal The Far East which was illustrated with photographs and edited by John Reddie Black. This is a rare opportunity to acquire an almost complete set of Volume one to three of the new series (1876-1877) and 112 original photographs (£17,500), even single issues of the journal are extremely rare. The images were taken by professional photographers and provide a vivid illustration of daily life and leading personalities in the open ports featuring a variety of foreign buildings, shops, and temples in Shanghai, images of beggars, itinerant cobblers and labourers, high-ranking Chinese officials (incl. the Governor of Nanjing, the famous statesman Li Hong-zhang), a number of missionary and political figures and views of a variety of cities.

For collectors of European classics, Lucius Books will be bringing the original illustration of 'Ratty and Mole' from Wind in the Willows, the book written by Kenneth Grahame but illustrated by Ernest Howard Shepard, well-known for his illustrations of Winnie the Pooh. This original painting was beautifully executed in watercolour, gouache, ink and pencil on wove paper, and produced for the first colour illustrated edition of the book in 1959 by Methuen in London. Grahame had not been happy with the original illustrations of his 1908 children's classic and Shepard first produced black and white line drawings for him in 1931, which were then reproduced with these additional colour illustrations. This work was directly acquired from the artist in 1965 and carries an asking price of £45,000.

Hong Kong based Lok Man Rare Books Limited will be showing an exceptionally fine and thus scarce first edition of Sir Ernest Shackleton's South - The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917 from 1919, this large book is notorious for its poor quality of paper and binding and is housed in a bespoke blue solander slipcase (HK$ 50,000). The book is a legendary account of leadership. Shackleton embarked in 1914 on the Endurance to make the first traverse of the Antarctic continent; a journey of some 1800 miles from sea to sea. But in 1915 the ship was trapped in the ice for nine months and eventually crushed on October 27. Shackleton left with five companions to make a voyage of 800 miles in a 22-foot boat through some of the stormiest seas in the world, crossed the unknown lofty interior of South Georgia, and reached a Norwegian whaling station on the north coast. After three attempts, Shackleton succeeded (30 August 1916) in rescuing the rest of the Endurance party and bringing them to South America - all survived.

The book includes 86 full page plates, and large folding map to the rear, many classic photographs existing only due to the stubbornness of Hurley, Shackleton’s photographer, in refusing to leave the plates behind to conserve energy and food.

Gallery 'Picture This' will be bringing a second issue of the first edition of W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil from 1925 with the scarce original dust jacket, correctly priced 7s. 6d. net to the spine. The First issue, which was recalled following the threat of libel action by the Hong Kong Colonial Secretary, is very scarce with only 74 copies known to exist. This, the Second Issue, has had the text amended to remove references to Hong Kong, Happy Valley and The Peak and is in very good condition.