IMAGINE YOU'RE A representative of Great Britain in the late 18th century, setting off to woo China's emperor. What would you take as gifts? Cheddar cheese, Marmite, preserves?
Perhaps not if you were setting off on a three-year journey from London to Beijing, as Lord George Macartney did in 1792, when he was sent by King George III to gently persuade Emperor Qianlong that China should open up trading links.
Writer and orientalist George Staunton's weighty tome that tells of Macartney's visit to the emperor is a treasure to look at and is believed to have become Macartney's personal copy. Beautiful drawings and paintings of the Chinese court at that time, and the flora and fauna, which were new to the British explorers, illustrate the large pages. There are plates of Chinese birds and traditional costumes, including watercolours by the painter William Alexander.
The 1798 edition, An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, is part of a five-volume set. It's on show for the first time at a University of Hong Kong exhibition called Books and their Stories: Gems from the University of Hong Kong Libraries Collection, until the end of next month.
It can be viewed on the internet and is the one millionth eBook put on the Web by the university. To mark that milestone, Wan Yiu-chuen - head of the Fung Ping Shan Library - was given an opportunity to delve into the historic treasures collected over the years.
'There are different chops for different ownerships of the book,but we don't know who owned it until it appeared again in 1959,' says Wan. Then it was put up for auction by an English book dealer and the library of the University of Hong Kong bought it for a princely #1,500.
