George Thomas Staunton was 12 years old when he accompanied his father Sir George Leonard Staunton and Lord Macartney on

George Thomas Staunton was 12 years old when he accompanied his father Sir George Leonard Staunton and Lord Macartney (and

George Thomas Staunton was particularly famous for two things, One was as a 12 year old lad on Lord Macartney’s

A collection of articles on early and rare New Zealand books of the 19th C, posted from 2022 onwards,  has

Peter Auber was secretary of the East India Company in the 1820s to 1836. In 1834, he wrote an account

The 18th Century saw more than 30 voyages to China by the Swedish East India Company. On some of them,

The first comprehensive book on China widely available to European readers was that compiled by the Spanish Jesuit priest Juan

Amidst the excitement around the publication of accounts of the Macartney embassy to China in the 1790s, another book appeared

We think of the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands as a conservation success, full of seals, peat bogs and birds, the culling

Another mid-19th C life of adventure. Naturalist on Beechey’s three year pacific voyage, aimed at meeting up with Franklin when

Charles Toogood Downing was a young surgeon who visited China in the late 1830s, just before the first opium war

Almost 80 years ago, Thomas Meadows, back in England on leave from the British consular service in China, wrote one

Amidst the European accounts of early New Zealand, a book written by a woman stands out. Not only for its

The 17th century Italian traveller, Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, at around the age of 42 in 1693, decided he had

The 1860s saw the start of systematic investigation and surveying of Aotearoa’s geology, flora and fauna. Leading this was the

There has been much written about Robert Fortune, the mid-19th Century plant collector travelling in China and Japan. He was

Early books on China: Much of the literature of western accounts of travel to China focuses on the route from

Early books on China: Over the 17th and 18th centuries, some hundreds of missionary priests made the hazardous voyage to

Early books on China: Towards the end of 1792, Lord Macartney and a large retinue of staff, servants, militia, musicians,