Death blow to corrupt doctrines. A plain statement of facts. Published by Gentry and People. Translated from the Chinese.
Shanghai: 1870.
Price: $3,000.00
About the item
First edition "This singular pamphlet, of which 500 copies were originally printed, but of which no more perhaps than 100 now exist, the remainder...having been destroyed..." ix, [i], 64 pp. 8vo [8-1/8 x 5-1/2 inches (21 x 14 cm)]. Publisher's blue printed wrappers. Spine of wrappers perished, corners of leaves a bit dogeared, small puncture in extreme lower margin from p. 28 on to end. Ownership signature of S. W. Pomeroy, Hong Kong, November 1870 in ink on top of the front wrapper (Pomeroy of London represented the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and was a partner at Russell & Co.). Ashbee, Bibliography of Prohibited Books III, pp. 434-440; OCLC (3 copies, Huntington, BL; Univ. of London); Latourette, A History of Christian Missions in China pp. 367; Fisher, C.W. Mateer p. 162.
Item #318980
The book was published in a small edition (Ashbee says 500 copies), and is a verbatim translation of a series of scurrilous Chinese anti-clerical attacks, with imputations (quoted here in great and lurid detail) of a variety of bizarre sexual practices within the Church and by its priests. The writer of the preface, a Protestant missionary in the province of Shantung, acknowledges that the target of the polemic was primarily Jesuit missionaries (and that this had likely contributed to the Tianjin massacre of that same year), but that similar accusations had been levelled against his denomination. In part, this work documents the atmosphere towards foreigners that ultimately would lead to the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and its bloody aftermath.
"Of its authorship, and the exact date and place of its publication, the book itself gives no information..."Ashbee.
Mateer is famous for being chairman of the committee for Bible translation into Chinese translation of the Holy Bible, The Chinese Union Version and founding Tengchow University, now Shandong University. His wife Julia was a famous missionary in her own right.
