A collection of out-of-copyright and rare books from the Cambridge University Library and other world-class institutions that have been digitally scanned, made available online, and reprinted in paperback.
A collection of out-of-copyright and rare books from the Cambridge University Library and other world-class institutions that have been digitally scanned, made available online, and reprinted in paperback.
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Sir George Thomas Staunton (1781–1859), Sinologist and politician, was a key figure in Anglo-Chinese relations, as had been his father. In 1798 he began working for the British East India Company in Canton (Guangzhou), where he was the only Englishman who could understand Chinese, having begun learning it as a child. By 1815, British trade with China was worth over £4 million in tea duties alone, and there was immense pressure for the Chinese to relax their restrictions. In 1816, following earlier failed missions, an embassy, including Staunton as second commissioner, was organised to seek better trading conditions and to press the emperor for the opening up of a second harbour. Chinese mistrust and British arrogance led to the failure of the embassy, with no imperial audience given. This account, privately published in 1824, is a valuable document in the understanding of the historical background to Britain's relationship with China into the twentieth century.
John Evelyn (1620–1706), intellectual, diarist, gardener and founder member of the Royal Society, is best known for his Diary, the great journal of his life and times, encompassing a momentous period in British history. A lifelong collector of books, like his contemporary Pepys, Evelyn amassed over 4,000 items in his library. This work, originally published in 1664, was the first English-language treatise on forestry. Intended for the gentry, it aimed to encourage tree-planting after the ravages of the Civil War and to ensure a supply of timber for Britain's fast-developing navy. The first work sponsored officially by the Royal Society, it was an offshoot of Evelyn's unpublished manuscript Elysium Britannicum, a compendium of gardens and gardening. This is the 1908 two-volume reprint of the fourth edition, published in the year of Evelyn's death. Volume 1 describes different species of tree, deciduous and evergreen, and includes an introductory biography of Evelyn by John Nisbet (1858–1914).