Foreigners in Formosa 1841-1874By George Williams Carrington
1977 signed and inscribed first edition, Chinese Materials Center (San Francisco, California), 6 x 8 1/2 inches tall blue faux leather hardcover in publisher's unclipped dust jacket, map pastedowns, color frontispiece, xiii, 308 pp. Very slight soiling and rubbing to covers. Very slight foxing to pastedowns, verso of frontispiece and lower title page. Nicely signed and inscribed by the author, Col. George Williams Carrington, Jr. (1921-2015), on the title page. Otherwise, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked - in a slightly edgeworn dust jacket which is nicely preserved and displayed in a clear archival Brodart sleeve.
The story of the nineteenth-century return of Westerners to Formosa after having been excluded from the island since the Dutch suffered defeat at the hands of the Ming patriot Koxinga in 1662. Among those who came in the years 1841-74, the span covered in this narrative, were ship captains looking for shipwreck survivors and coal traders in camphor, opium, rice, sugar, and tea; explorers and natural scientists; consuls and customs officials; and Catholic and Protestant missionaries. The motivations, personalities, and actions of the colorful central figures of all of these groups are described in meticulous detail, a product of the author's careful study of nineteenth century documents now housed in diverse collections in the U.S., England, and Canada. Also recounted are the various schemes concocted by foreigners on the scene - including one short-lived but potentially explosive scheme to make Taiwan an acquisition of the United States.