Kowtow
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1929. First edition. Hardcover. First edition. INSCRIBED ON THE HALF TITLE "To My dear _____/ with the author's love/ Elizabeth nee princess Der Ling/ New York City, August 1929". and with a red Chinese figural stamp. Hardcover in emerald green cloth lettered and decorated in gilt; endpapers and six plates in the text with illustrations by S. Pinkus. About very good, light even soiling and rubbed at the extremities. A book of memoirs and descriptions of life in the Qing Dynasty "Princess" Der Ling (1885-1944), granddaughter of a Boston merchant (or posibly, as she claimed, a Chinese lord) and half-Chinese mother, served as as the lady-in-waiting for the Empress Dowager Cixi (thus, though not herself of royal blood, receiving the honorary tile "Princess"). She received a Western education, spoke and wrote French and English, as studies dance in Paris with Isadora Duncan. In 1907 she married American Thaddeus White. Her first published book "Two Years In The Forbidden City" (1911) was the first of eight books of memoirs and observations on Chinese life; she also wrote numerous magazine articles for Western publications, particulaerly The Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping. The title of this book, "Kowtow", is taken from the term ("koutou" in Mandarin Chinese) for the act of imperial protocol of toching ones forehaed to the ground when in the presence of the Emperor. Very Good. Item #E24295
Price: $225.00