LIN-LE [LINDLEY, Augustus F.]

Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh. The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution, including a Narrative of the Author's Personal Adventures

London, Day & Son (Limited), 1866.

Super royal octavo, two volumes, xx (last blank), 424 and viii, 425-842, [1] (colophon) pages with 9 wood engravings plus a folding chromolithographic frontispiece, 2 folding colour maps, 10 tinted lithographs and 8 chromolithographs.

Original gilt-pictorial and blind-ruled plum cloth marked, heavily flecked, sunned on the spines and bumped on the corners; minor loss of cloth to silverfish, with light wear to the extremities; some small inkspots to one leading edge and both bottom edges; light offsetting to flyleaves and pages adjacent to the plates; creases and tiny chips to the top corner of the last eight leaves of the first volume; a few other trifling signs of use and age; a decent set (internally excellent).

'The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. It was led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having claimed to have received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history. Augustus Frederick Lindley (Lin-Le to his Taiping soldiers) was a Royal Navy officer who, along with his wife Mary, joined the 1860 Taiping reform movement in China. He trained Taiping soldiers using modern techniques, and Mary became a sniper' (Booktopia). Provenance: the signature of C.H. Leycester, 12 The Hand, appears on a preliminary page; in 1865, he established Coralbignie Run, south of Lake Gairdner in South Australia.