 |
| 1902 Chinese Almanac in Mr. Brad Johnson's collection. All rights reserved. |
Recently, Mr. Brad Johnson, an antique bookstore owner in Maryland, contacted me about his new discovery of a old Chinese book in an estate sale. The book he discovered is actually a Chinese almanac printed in 1902 in Guangzhou. The title is Zhongwai tongchun 中外同春, which may be rendered as Same Spring in and outside China. The publisher is called Duowentang 多文堂, the Hall of Myriads of Letters. I searched Wildcat about this publisher and found they published a similar title several years ago and its digital version is available online and can be downloaded from HathiTrust Digital Library. I quickly compared the two and can see they are similar. The uniqueness of this is that it includes substantial knowledge about Western countries, considering Guangzhou (Canton) was an open port for many years. My guess is that the publisher compiled this title and kept updating it in different years for the market needs. I haven't seen any studies about this title. Here is the bibliographic information of a 1896 edition of this book.
中外褆福.
Zhong wai ti fu
Author: Duo wen tang.
Publisher: 多文堂, [Guangzhou] : Duo wen tang, Guangxu 22 [1896]
 |
| Chinese Almanac in Mr. Brad Johnson's collection. All rights reserved. |
 |
| Chinese Almanac in Mr. Brad Johnson's collection. All rights reserved. |
 |
| Chinese Almanac in Mr. Brad Johnson's collection. All rights reserved. |
 |
| Chinese Almanac in Mr. Brad Johnson's collection. All rights reserved. |
 |
| Chinese Almanac in Mr. Brad Johnson's collection. All rights reserved. |
Also, the publisher is located in a central street called Longcang Street 龙藏街. There used to be a Buddhist temple called Longcang and right now called Dafo Temple大佛寺, which I visited in May, 2015.
There are studies of publishing culture in Hangzhou and Sichuan but very few on Guangzhou. Here is a few useful references in Chinese:
《出版志》
http://www.bookshopllc.com/id6.html
http://wxs.sysu.edu.cn/download/094.pdf
清代广州的文化街
清代广州书坊及私人刻书拾萃
http://www.jslib.org.cn/jslib_gxdl/jslib_gxdlgxyj/201409/P020140902351805506489.pdf
清代广东书访的新型径营模式
清末民国广州的书店业
清代广州海幢寺经坊刻书及藏版述略
No comments:
Post a Comment