Nov 21, 2024 - Sale 2687

Sale 2687 - Lot 109

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(COMMERCE.) S. Wells Williams. A Chinese Commercial Guide. Folding table. viii, 376 pages. 8vo, publisher's cloth-backed printed boards, worn; minimal wear to contents; speckled edges; inscribed on title page "Capt. S.F. DuPont, with remembrance of the author. 'Minnesota' in the Yellow Sea, July 9/58." Canton, China: Office of the Chinese Repository, 1856
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Stated fourth edition. A comprehensive insider's guide for American and British merchants hoping to make their fortunes in the East. Includes sailing directions for the various ports in China and Japan; descriptions of the products available in each port; a new section on the recent American treaty "negotiated" (with gunboats) by Commodore Perry with Japan; and currency used throughout East Asia. Key words are often shown with their corresponding Chinese characters.

This is an impressive association copy, inscribed by the author to Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont in command of the USS Minnesota, one of the American warships that was attempting to intimidate China into a trade deal at that time. He was later a Union rear admiral in the Civil War, and the namesake of Washington's Dupont Circle.