PIDGIN CARGO

New York [1929], Century. Back cloth, very clean and solid copy, 315p., red stamped spine titles & Chinese character on front cover, contents immaculate, 13 x 19.5 cm. AUTHOR'S SIGNED PRESENTATION COPY FIRST EDITION . *** **** *** . . THE PRIMARY ACCOUNT OF HER LIFE BY THE YANGTZE RIVER . . THE EFFORTS OF AN AMERICAN TRYING TO . . RUN STEAM BOATS UP THE WILD RAPIDS . * THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS TITLE: . This work was first published under the title PIDGIN CARGO, and later republished under the alternate tile: RIVER SUPREME. Both titles are the exact same text, however there is an added value to this, the first appearacne of this title. . * THE SUBJECT: Novel of an American engineer's quest to tame China's Yangtze river determined to conquer the Upper Yangtze by steamboat [who] enters into an heroic struggle not only with the violent, wild Yangtze river, but with the sinister force of the over-populated land. With him is his wife, a timid woman who is afraid of the Oriental environment, afraid to bear children . . ." An interesting novel considering what was happening in China at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, 1900. . * The Yangtze was often called: THE "GOLD-DUST RIVER," [Shajin Jiang/he], "THE BIG RIVER," [Da Jiang/he] or "LONG RIVER" [Chang Jiang/he]. . *** Alice Tisdale Hobart [1882-1967]: She was a well-known American woman author of popular fiction & non-fiction books about China. She was born Alice Nourse in Lockport, New York. Her most famous book, OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA, which was also made into a film, drew heavily on her experiences as the wife of an American oil executive in China amid the turmoil of the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty in 1912. . * She first traveled to China in 1908 to visit her sister Mary, who taught at a girl's school in Hangchow, and returned two years later to take up a post at the same establishment. After marrying Earle Tisdale Hobart, a Standard Oil Company executive, in Tientsin in 1914, she traveled to Manchuria and in 1916 published an article on her experiences at the hands of Manchurian bandits in The Atlantic Monthly. It led to a series of pieces entitled Leaves From a Manchurian Diary and formed the basis for her first book, PIONEERING WHERE THE WORLD IS OLD in 1917. . * Her life in Changsha formed the backdrop for her second book, BY THE CITY OF THE LONG SAND, while an assault on Nanking by Nationalist soldiers and her escape over the city wall to the safety of the waiting American gunboats was recounted in WITHIN THE WALLS OF NANKING in 1928. This book started as a piece in Harper's Magazine. Her fictional account of her experiences in China, not surprisingly, focused on the role played by Western businessmen, especially those engaged in importing and selling petroleum products. . * PIDGIN CARGO, set among traders on the Yangtze River, appeared in 1929, and later republished in 1934, with the title: RIVER SUPREME. Also her OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA in 1933. After making her home in California in the 1940s, her subject matter expanded to encompass contemporary Mexico in The Peacock Sheds His Tail (1945) and Californian agrarian life in The Cup and the Sword (1942) and The Cleft Rock (1948). In 1959 she published her memoir, GUTSY'S CHILD. She published more than a dozen novels in all by the time of her death in 1967, with almost four million copies in print. Her writings: Oil for the Lamps of China Leaves From a Manchurian Diary Pioneering Where the World is Old: Leaves From a Manchurian Diary. This :title was written under her maiden name but she is one and the same as Alice Tisdale Hobart. . * DUST JACKET When present, the end papers and dust jacket were designed & painted by L. Douglass .[Not present in all copies, please read the description of each copy offered]. . * . Her writings: . Oil for the Lamps of China Leaves From a Manchurian Diary Pioneering Where the World is Old By the City of the Long Sand Within the Walls of Nanking Pidgin Cargo River Supreme The Peacock S. …