Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences, les arts, les moeurs, les usages, &c. des Chinois: par les Missionaires de Pekin, 5.
Tome Cinquieme. Paris Chez Nyon 1780
First edition. 4to (26.5 x 19.5 cm), pp.[iv], 518, 3 plates. Fifth volume only. Bound in rather scuffed contemporary leather. Contents in very good condition, with occasional spotting. Underlining and marginal marks in coloured crayon on some 40 pages. Ticket of Chung Yuan Bookstore, Peking.
Cordier BS 54 (giving a synopsis of each volume); Löwendahl 607 (giving the contents in detail); Morrison II p.175
The fifth volume of this massive encyclopaedic compendium on Chinese civilisation. Amiot provides ten long biographies of famous Chinese, including the Tang Dynasty empress Wu Zetian, the poet Du Fu, and the government official Han Yu, in almost four hundred pages and a sixty-eight page general article on China; the remaining fifty pages comprise shorter articles by Cibot on the Turkic rulers of Hami; apricots; traditional remedies; mugwort; Chinese wine, spirits, and vinegars; and the raisins of Hami.