The Chinese Book Of Etiquette And Conduct For Women And Girls Entitled Instructions For Chinese Women And Girls. By Lady Tsao. Translated From The Chinese. Baldwin, Esther E., As Mrs S. L. Baldwin.

First edition, first printing, scarce in this condition, of the first adaptation into English of Ban Zhao's Nu Jie. Famed for her intellect, Ban was a leading Han dynasty literatus summoned to court to tutor the imperial family. Nu Jie, instructions to prepare her daughters and nieces for life, was a cornerstone of Confucian thought for 2,000 years. Ban (c. 45-120 CE) was the daughter of the court historian Ban Biao and enjoyed a privileged education at a time when the majority of Han women were not given formal tutoring in the classics. Her text, drawing from ideas contained in the Confucian Li Ji (Classic of Rites), stresses the virtues of obedience and self-sacrifice: "All girls, everywhere, first should learn to cultivate virtue. Of cultivating virtue's methods, the most important is to be pure and upright in morals" (p. 1). After the death of her brother, Ban Gu, Ban completed his Han Shu (Book of Han), the standard official history of the Western Han Dynasty. Esther E. Baldwin (1840-1910), known to contemporaries as the "Chinese Champion" because of her advocacy for Chinese immigrants in the United States, served in Fuzhou as a missionary throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Baldwin translated Ban's text partly to demonstrate the sophistication and long history of Chinese culture. Octavo. Original red diagonally ribbed cloth, front cover elaborately blocked in gilt and green after a design by Pang Sun Yow, red endpapers, edges gilt. With 12 illustrations after drawings by Pang Sun Yow; title page and text pages framed with green bamboo design. Cloth fresh was spine just a little sunned, blocked decoration, edges, and endpapers bright, endpapers lightly rubbed, text fresh: a fine copy.