Reception and Entertainment of the Chinese Embassy, By the City of Boston.
Published by Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, City Printers, 1868
- First Edition
- Used
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United KingdomPeter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB.
AbeBooks seller since July 26, 1999
Condition: Used
£ 1,500.00
Quantity:Â 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
First edition in wrappers of this work commemorating the August 1868 visit to Boston by the first Chinese embassy to the United States. The contents includes the text of a banquet speech by Ralph Waldo Emerson articulating Confucianism's contribution to notions of human goodness. In 1867, the Qing court appointed the Bostonian Anson Burlingame (1820-1870) as its envoy extraordinary to the Western powers, and the following year Burlingame led China's first official embassy to the United States and Europe. Burlingame was the ideal choice for such a task, possessing "a frank, noble disposition, habits of industry, a charming and persuasive manner, and promising talents as an orator" (quoted in the ANB). With the Chinese ministers Zhigang and Sun Jiagu at his side, Burlingame landed on America's Pacific Coast in March 1868, before city-hopping eastwards and reaching Washington in June. There, after extended negotiations, the two parties concluded the landmark Burlingame-Seward Treaty, the first time a foreign power explicitly recognized China's sovereignty. Following these negotiations, the embassy journeyed to Boston, staying between 20 August and 2 September. The present commemorative volume prints the full text of speeches given at the welcome reception and grand banquet. Other sections detail the engagements laid on for Burlingame and his party, such as visits to the governor's mansion and local manufacturing sites. Burlingame's effusive and somewhat hyperbolic words at the banquet capture the historical importance of the embassy: "the presence here of my associates, with the sunshine of the Orient upon their faces, and the warmth of its fires in their hearts, arouses more emotions than the most eloquent tongue can express. The land of Washington has greeted the land of Confucius. The great thoughts of the one have been wedded to the great deeds of the other" (p. 20). Pages 52-55 contain the text of a speech by Ralph Waldo Emerson who was invited to address the welcome banquet. To attendees, Emerson extolled the longevity of China's culture and its scientific, technological, and cultural successes achieved long before those of European countries. Discussing Chinese philosophy, Emerson praised Confucius as having anticipated Jesus' teachings of goodness towards others by five hundred years - an expression of Confucianism's sustained influence on Emerson's transcendentalism. "Confucianism reinforced Emerson's emphasis on the moral imperative for every individual, and. the Confucian ideal of the ethical, solitary, learned and decorous man certainly appealed to Emerson's sense of himself" (Versluis, p. 70). The speech was later reprinted in his Miscellanies (1904). Copies of the present work were also bound in cloth, with no stated priority between the two bindings. BAL III, 23. Arthur Versluis, American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions, 1993. Octavo. Emblem of the city of Boston to title page. Original blue coated card wrappers, title and emblem of the city of Boston to front cover in black. Small pencilled annotation to front cover, library stamp of Tufts College to title page. Wrappers lightly soiled and rubbed in places with one small chip, slight colour bleed to verso of wrappers, internally clean and bright. A very good copy of this fragile publication.…
Seller Inventory # 150997
Bibliographic details
- Title
- Reception and Entertainment of the Chinese Embassy, By the City of Boston.
- Author
- EMERSON, Ralph Waldo; CITY OF BOSTON.
- Publisher
- Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, City Printers, 1868
- Edition
- 1st Edition
Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB.
London, United Kingdom
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