Extremely rare Macao folio printed at Callery’s press

Callery, Joseph Marie. Systema phoneticum scripturae sinicae. Pars prima [& secunda].

€ 10,000.00

First edition, folio issue, of Callery’s most important sinological work, produced at his own press in Macao.

In the preface Callery explains how, with limited funds and materials, he established a small printing office, acquired a set of used types, and with six local assistants inexperienced in Western languages set the work himself.

The "Systema" presents a guide to writing Chinese characters in three styles, followed by a trilingual (Chinese-French-Latin) dictionary and a large collection of colloquial sentences; Part II includes a double page all Chinese “Tabula synoptica phoneticarum omnium”.

Issued in both 8vo and folio formats. Leroux’s 1876 catalogue of Callery’s library priced the octavo at 60 francs, noting the folio at 100 francs and already sold out, signalling early scarcity of this larger issue.

A substantial Macao production on fragile, locally made paper, here preserved in remarkable state with wide margins and the contemporary boards, and bearing the ticket of the leading Paris Orientalist bookseller Benjamin Duprat.