Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832, & 1833, with Notices of Siam, Corea, and the Loo-Choo Islands. To Which is Prefixed, an Introductory Essay on the Policy, Religion, etc. of China, by the Rev. W. Ellis. GUTZLAFF, Charles.

Second edition, published the same year as the scarcer first edition. A protégé of Robert Morrison, Karl Gützlaff served as an interpreter and protestant medical missionary in China either side of the First Opium War. "This publication excited considerable interest in China on the Continent and in England. He called for missionaries to be sent to China, where brave men might be able to live and work despite government resistance. He cited the example of the early Apostles to justify his preaching of the gospel even when the government forbade it" (Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity). The work was quoted extensively in Western popular publications and in the British House of Commons. The text expands on Gutzlaff's account of his 1831 and 1832 voyages that he published in 1833. A third edition followed in 1840, interest renewed by the outbreak of hostilities. Cordier 2111; Lust 371; not in Löwendahl. Octavo. Engraved frontispiece, folding map. Original yellow diagonal-grain moiré cloth, spine lettered in gilt, edges untrimmed. Contemporary ownership inscriptions ("William Smith, 1834"; "L. P. Smith, 1849") in ink and pencil on front free endpaper. Cloth marked and lightly soiled, couple of bumps, front inner hinge tender: very good.