Amiot's biographies of fifty-two famous Chinese figures
Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences, les arts, les moeurs, les usages, &c. des Chinois: par les Missionaires de Pekin, 3.
Tome Troisieme. Paris Chez Nyon 1778
First edition. 4to (26.5 x 19.5 cm), pp.iv, 504, 6 plates. Third volume only. Bound in rather scuffed and worn contemporary calf. Top of spine split. Contents in very good condition, with occasional spotting. Underlining and marginal marks in coloured crayon affecting around 30 pages. Ticket of Chung Yuan Bookstore, Peking.
Cordier BS 54 (giving a synopsis of each volume); Löwendahl 601 (giving the contents in detail); Morrison II, p.175
The third volume of this massive encyclopaedic compendium on Chinese civilisation. The main paper in this volume is Amiot's biographies of fifty-two famous Chinese figures. Among those depicted by the engraved plates are Fu Xi, Kong Zi (Confucius), Qin Shi Huang, and Ban Zhao.