The Silent Traveller in London
- London: Country Life, 1938
London: Country Life, 1938. First edition. Fine. A Fine Copy. Octavo (8 7/8 x 5 3/4 inches; 225 x 145 mm.). xix, [i, blank], 255, [1], [4, blank] pp. Thirteen plates including two in color. Specially bound by Leighton-Straker ca. 1938 (stamp-signed in gilt on rear turn-in). Full red morocco, upper cover lettered in gilt with Chinese characters, smooth spine lettered in gilt and Chinese characters, publisher's decorative end-papers, top edge gilt, others uncut. A fine example.
A rare perspective from an artist and unwitting expat Chiang Yee (1903-1977), who called himself the “Silent Traveller.” He was a poet and author who left China to study economics and administration at the London School of Economics; eventually war left him stuck in England. He traveled widely around the country --and left gloriously observed and highly detailed accounts of his journeys along the way. His travelogues are not just accounts of peoples and places, but also offer perspectives on wartime life and his opposition to Nazism. Eventually he would move to the United States and continued traveling much farther afield: his final book being The Silent Traveller in Japan (1972) published a few years before he finally returned to China (Bromley House Library).
This copy was bound by the firm of Leighton-Straker. These binders bound many fine editions, perhaps the most well known being a signed limited edition of Churchill's Marlborough, Rex Whistler's illustrated edition of Hans Andersen, and books for Cresset, Golden Cockerel and Nonesuch Presses. Fine.
A rare perspective from an artist and unwitting expat Chiang Yee (1903-1977), who called himself the “Silent Traveller.” He was a poet and author who left China to study economics and administration at the London School of Economics; eventually war left him stuck in England. He traveled widely around the country --and left gloriously observed and highly detailed accounts of his journeys along the way. His travelogues are not just accounts of peoples and places, but also offer perspectives on wartime life and his opposition to Nazism. Eventually he would move to the United States and continued traveling much farther afield: his final book being The Silent Traveller in Japan (1972) published a few years before he finally returned to China (Bromley House Library).
This copy was bound by the firm of Leighton-Straker. These binders bound many fine editions, perhaps the most well known being a signed limited edition of Churchill's Marlborough, Rex Whistler's illustrated edition of Hans Andersen, and books for Cresset, Golden Cockerel and Nonesuch Presses. Fine.