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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 50| April 2001


Published Catalogue of Rare Chinese Collection

1853 Taiping Rebellion proclamation

A rare 1853 Taiping Rebellion proclamation in the London Missionary Society Collection

 

The Catalogue of the London Missionary Society Collection Held by the National Library of Australia (ISBN 0 642 10741 6) has just been published. The Catalogue was compiled by Ching Sun and Wan Wong, based on the cataloguing of the London Missionary Society Collection by Weidong Chen. It lists the rare and unusual Chinese language monographs, serials and maps which make up the bulk of this collection, as well as some Japanese and Korean language monographs.

The Library acquired the London Missionary Society Collection in 1961 as part of its effort to develop strong research holdings on modern Asia. It includes publications on a wide range of subjects from the early seventeenth century up to the 1950s. About one third of the titles relate to Christianity. There are also rare editions of classic Chinese historical and literary works, as well as early Chinese translations of Western science books. The most outstanding material comes from the Taiping Rebellion in mid-nineteenth-century China, including monographs published by the Taiping rebels and original Taiping proclamations.

In the Catalogue Chinese language monographs are arranged by title and by broad subject, with an appendix listing Taiping items. Entries include romanised title, the title in Chinese, Japanese or Korean scripts, place of publication, publisher, date, subject headings and the Library’s call number.

Copies of the Catalogue are available from Andrew Gosling, Asian Collections,
Tel. (02) 6262 1286, Fax (02) 6273 4327, Email: agosling@nla.gov.au

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au

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