Essai sur l'histoire de l'instruction publique en Chine et de la corporation des lettrés, depuis les anciens temps jusqu'à nos jours ; ouvrage entièrement rédigé d'après les documents chinois

First edition (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 1430).

Our copy is preserved in its original temporary grey paper wrappers.

This is the first memoir only of a monograph that was eventually completed in 648 pages.

Unlettered spine split with losses, chipped corners to the wrappers, occasional foxing throughout.

The engineer Edouard-Constant Biot (1803-1850), son of the mathematician Jean-Baptiste Biot, studied under Stanislas Julien and rapidly established himself as an outstanding sinologist whose scholarship remains authoritative today.

Provenance: From the library of the celebrated mathematician Michel Chasles (1793-1880), member of the Académie des sciences, with his bookplate pasted to the inside of the upper wrapper.