1787.d.7, 1

Imprint: London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street. 1873.

Folio, quarter leather and red cloth binding, measuring 475 x 360 mm, with original brown cloth and gilt upper board laid down on front endpaper; unpaginated. This volume contains 24 plates, with 51 collotype reproductions from Thomson's photographs, accompanied by Thomson's own letterpress descriptions of his travels in China from 1868-72 and of the subjects portrayed. The British Library copy of this four-volume work is bound in two volumes (volumes 1-2 and 3-4 bound as one). For a detailed account of Thomson's life and photographic work, see Richard Ovenden, 'John Thomson (1837-1921) Photographer' (National Library of Scotland, 1997). In his introduction to the first volume, Thomson gives some account of his intentions and his itinerary:'My design in the accompanying work is to present a series of pictures of China and its people, such as shall convey an accurate impression of the country I traversed as well as of the arts, usages, and manners which prevail in different provinces of the Empire. With this intention I made the camera the constant companion of my wanderings, and to it I am indebted for the faithful reproduction of the scenes I visited, and of the types of race with which I came into contact.It is a novel experiment to attempt to illustrate a book of travels with photographs, a few years back so perishable, and so difficult to reproduce. But the art is now so advanced, that we can multiply the copies with the same facility, and print them with the same materials as in the case of woodcuts or engravings. I feel somewhat sanguine about the success of the undertaking, and I hope to see the process which I have thus applied adopted by other travellers; for the faithfulness of such pictures affords the nearest approach that can be made towards placing the reader actually before the scene which is represented.I have endeavoured to arrange these notes and illustrations as far as possible in the natural order or sequence of my journeys, which extended over a distance, estimated roughly, of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles.I shall start from the British colony of Hong-Kong...which now, with its city of Victoria...may be fairly considered the birthplace of a new era in eastern civilization. I will next proceed by the Pearl River to Canton...Thence I will cross to Formosa...Crossing to the mainland, I will visit Swatow and Chow-chow-fu...I shall then pass northward to Amoy...The River Min will here afford examples of the grand mountain scenery to be found in the Fukien province, and will form an attractive portion of the work, as the great artery which carries an annual supply of about seventy million pounds of tea to the Foochow market.Following the route northward the reader will be introduced to Shanghai, the greatest of the treaty ports of China...Leaving Shanghai, I will proceed to Ningpo and Snowy Valley, the favourite spring resort of the Shanghai residents...thence to the Yangtsze Kiang, visiting en route the treaty ports and the ancient capital Nankin, passing through the wierd scenery of the gorges of the Upper Yangtsze, and penetrating as far as Kwei-chow-fu. The concluding journey will embrace Chefoo, the Peiho, Tientsin and Peking. The remarkable antiquities, the palace, temples, and observatory; the different races in the great metropolis; the ruins of the Summer Palace and the Ming Tombs shall be presented to the reader: after which I will guide him through the Nankow Pass, and take my leave of him at the Great Wall.'