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Life in Old China. Fascinating group of ten l

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:125.00 USD Estimated At:250.00 - 350.00 USD
Life in Old China. Fascinating group of ten l
Life in Old China. Fascinating group of ten letters (two incomplete) and one card, 44 pp. in all, from Lizzie and William Shaw, missionaries running a doctor's dispensary and school at Par ting fu, evidently near Peking, to grandmother Mrs. Burnham of Essex, Mass., 1880-82. Wonderful commentary on Chinese life and customs, penned from such locales as "On the Great Clear River, sailing from Par ting fu to Tientsin": "...Every girl had to unbind her feet before she could enter the school...Smallpox common...I have just been talking through a telephone to Dr. Peck. He will have just stretched the wires across the street...The Chinese women are all perfect slaves to their babies... We saw very few children with clothes on. At the inns the people crowded around us...The more we know these people, the more we feel with them...." Engrossing descriptions of upper-class women from Manchuria, medical work, living quarters, New Year dress and customs, efforts of women to learn to read, and much more. Two letters in blue ink; all in a lovely Spencerian hand. Occasional minor wear, else fine and better. A rich, early first-hand chronicle of life in China, a land still shrouded in mystery at the time.