LIM, Boon Keng (trans.) The Li Sao: An Elegy on Encountering Sorrows by Ch’ü Yüan… Shanghai, The Commercial Press, Limited, 1929. 8vo, original blue ribbed cloth, gilt lettering to front board and spine, frontispiece, 3 plates, folding map, 200 pp.; excellent copy in a very good jacket (one rear corner chipped).
First edition of this first English translation of Qu Yuan’s classical poem by Singaporean intellectual and social reformer Dr. Lim Boon Keng. Features a preface by Rabindranath Tagore. Inscribed, signed, and dated by the translator to Mr. and Mrs. H. J. P. Anderson. When Lim was President of Xiamen University (1921–1937), Anderson served as principal of the Anglo-Chinese College and Chairman of the Kulangsu Municipal Council. Fluent in local dialects, Anderson was a vital intermediary between Western and Chinese communities, crossing paths with Lim within the region’s educational and civic spheres. A beautiful association copy in a rare well-preserved jacket.
