Description

Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945. Hardcover, vi, [2], 248 pp.; 21 cm; First Edition ("A" on copyright page); illustrated with black-and-white drawings by Stanley Chin, pink-and-white illustrated endpapers. Introduction by Keith Ayling. In Good+ condition with an Acceptable dust jacket. Tan cloth boards with green illustration of Ming and his trunk on front cover and green lettering on spine. Mild shelf and edge wear to covers, with toning along edges and light spotting to rear cover. Binding tight. Previous owner's name in ink on front free endpaper. Endpapers toned. Pages mildly toned, otherwise unmarked. Bright pink illustrated dust jacket, Ming at a steamer trunk addressed to San Francisco on front panel and a Chinese seal design on rear panel. Spine panel faded. A 3/4 inch tear at top edge of rear panel at the spine and a 1/2 inch tear at top edge of rear panel, with further small nicks, tears and light creasing along edges. A thin 1 inch chip along fold of front flap, with smaller chips along the same fold. Mild to moderate toning and soiling overall. Price clipped. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. Juvenile novel of a Chinese-American boyhood, written by Virginie Fowler with Stanley Hong Chin and illustrated by Chin, drawn largely from his own experience. Kwok Ming, an American citizen through his parents, grows up in the Six Villages district of Kwangtung: school at the Poy Gee temple, New Year lantern processions, a Boy Scout war game against the Student Soldiers, the Dragon Boat race. He later sees China's large cities and finally comes to San Francisco. Ayling's introduction gives Chin's biography: born in Kwangtung, he came to San Francisco in 1929 to visit relatives and stayed, studied at the National Academy of Design and Cooper Union, painted murals for the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China at the New York World's Fair, and designed for United China Relief. He finished the book while serving in Army Special Services. Published two years after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, in Scribner's list of books about children of the United Nations, and manufactured under wartime paper restrictions. Illustrations include double-page spreads of the lantern procession and a dragon boat.