£150
2 vols, 8vo, pp. xiv, 492 + 5 colour lithograph plates & 2 foldout maps; xii, 496 + 15 colour lithograph plates & 3 foldout maps. Re-backed preserving original backstrips in brown cloth, front boarded in black blind with Chinese garden pavilion, rear boarded in blind, spine gilt, dark blue endpapers. Light foxing. Slightly cocked, extremities rubbed.
Oliphant was Lord Elgin's personal secretary during the latter's time in China and Japan as Britain's High Commissioner and Plenipotentiary where he led the Second Opium War. Elgin's lasting legacy of the war is his orchestration of the burning of the Old Summer Palace in 1860, a site of irreplaceable cultural heritage for China, composed of ornamental gardens and palaces containing cultural and artistic treasures.
