DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER.
New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1929.
This is the true 1929 first edition, first printing of Chi-Chen Wang’s momentous translation, which represents the historic debut of China's monumental classic to mainstream Western readers. The translation was executed by Chi-Chen Wang (1899–2001), a pioneering Chinese-American academic who dedicated decades to introducing Western audiences to classical Asian texts.
The octavo volume retains its stunning original binding of red quarter-cloth over distinctive buff sides crafted from natural bamboo wood veneer, with some slight buffing on the right side.
The front cover displays a stamped red figure illustration, which opens to custom illustrated endpapers. A highly unique feature of this specific copy is the presence of early 20th-century print-shop layout annotations handwritten across the front inside cover and free endpaper: "OBC" (an internal bindery indicator for Outer Board Cover alignment) alongside "Paid" (historical pressroom lingo verifying that this specific phase of manual assembly was approved).
A very good plus, internally clean copy experiencing uniform age-toning. Housed in the exceptionally scarce, original illustrated dust jacket, which remains in very good condition, showing minor shelf friction and superficial wear at the spine ends; the front flap is price-clipped.
A beautifully preserved example of a landmark piece of world literature.
After joining the faculty at Columbia University in 1929, Chi-Chen Wang spent 36 years as a professor shaping the school's Chinese language and literature curriculum until stepping down in 1965. Alongside his early academic tenure, Wang spent nearly a decade from 1928 to 1936 contributing his expertise to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Item #34343 Price: US$800.00