GULIK, Robert van. Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved By Judge Dee an old Chinese detective novel translated from the original Chinese with an introduction and notes.

GULIK, Robert van. Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved By Judge Dee an old Chinese detective novel translated from the original Chinese with an introduction and notes.GULIK, Robert van. Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved By Judge Dee an old Chinese detective novel translated from the original Chinese with an introduction and notes. Tokyo: printed for the author by Toppan Printing Company. 1949. 8vo. Original woodcut illustrated boards showing Judge Dee, with the original blank dust jacket (the typed title to the spine likely added by a later owner); pp. [10], xxiii, [1 (blank)], 237, [3 blanks], with woodcut

GULIK, Robert van. Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved By Judge Dee an old Chinese detective novel translated from the original Chinese with an introduction and notes. Tokyo: printed for the author by Toppan Printing Company. 1949.

8vo. Original woodcut-illustrated boards showing Judge Dee, with the original blank dust-jacket (the typed title to the spine likely added by a later owner); pp. [10], xxiii, [1 (blank)], 237, [3 blanks], with woodcut frontispiece and 3 reproductions of original Chinese illustrations and 6 plates by the author; light wear to board edges and spine tips, minor rubbing to ink on upper cover, otherwise exceptionally bright and well preserved; author’s signature in black ink and red ink stamp to limitation page (see below); bookplate of Basil W. R. Jenkins to verso of front free endpaper; near fine.

First edition, no. 591 of 1,200 copies signed by the author, of the first English translation of the book that inspired the Judge Dee series.

Dee Goong An is an eighteenth-century Chinese crime novel, previously untranslated, which Van Gulik discovered in an antiquarian bookshop in Tokyo. The protagonist, Judge Dee, is modelled on the historical figure Di Renjie, a seventh-century Tang-dynasty magistrate. The novel, comprising three cases – “The Double Murder at Dawn”, “The Case of the Strange Corpse”, and “The Case of the Poisoned Bride” – inspired Van Gulik to develop the character of Judge Dee for his later, original, crime series.

A distinguished sinologist with a deep interest in traditional East Asian book production, Van Gulik designed this edition to reflect classical Chinese models. It includes nine woodblock illustrations: three reproduced from original Chinese sources and six executed by Van Gulik himself. The woodcut-printed boards replicate the design of the illustration facing p. 62 and are seldom encountered in such fresh condition. Equally uncommon is the survival of the publisher’s blank dust-jacket, which was typically discarded.

All copies were signed by the author on the limitation page and bear his red woodblock seal (tjap).

Evers, p. 49.

SKU: 2124216