Approx. 61 unnumbered pages. Illustrated with 12 full-page black and white illustrations by Sun Yow Pang. Translated by Mrs. S. L. Baldwin. (12mo), original printed red cloth, gilt titles and decorations on cover, red endpapers, a.e.g. First Edition.
Translation of the first Chinese book of etiquette, written in the 1st century AD, a comprehensive Confucian guide to virtuous female conduct. Inscribed by American feminist and suffragette leader May Wright Sewall.
Pang, a Christian convert, was known to the translator, wife of a former missionary in China. He was born in Canton, came to San Francisco, where his father owned a business, as a teenager in 1877, worked as a free-lance artist, and as illustrator for a New York Chinese newspaper, married an American woman and was active in Sun Yat-sen’s organization of revolutionary expatriates. He was last heard of in 1930 as owner of a Chinese restaurant in Tampa, Florida. This was probably the first book illustration by a Chinese-American artist. While he subsequently wrote and illustrated articles for many newspapers and periodicals (including a Sui Sin Far children's story) we know of only one other book illustrated by Pang (1925 listing below)
Sewall's inscription reads: "The virtuous woman described by Solomon is the woman incarnating the virtues taught by Lady Tsao, May 7, 1904.”