THOMSON, John. The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China, and China; Or Ten Years' Travels, Adventures and Residence abroad. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1875.
8vo. Original brown cloth, lettered an illustrated in gilt, covers with ornamentation in black; pp. xv, 546, 4 (advertisements), 25 wood-engraved plates with tissue guards, numerous wood-engravings in the text, all after photographs taken by the author sketch map, one plan and two maps; extremities a little worn, ptherwise very good.
Uncommon first US edition. This is the outcome of 10 years of travelling and taking photos in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Southern China. 'Thomson was a Scottish photographer, born in Edinburgh in 1837. He apprenticed to an optical and scientific instruments manufacturer and in 1856 followed evening classes at the Watt Institution and School of Art. His older brother was a photographer in Singapore, and in 1862 John followed in his footsteps … The nautical instruments business in Singapore led to his own photography studio, capturing the ex-pats of the day in their imperial finery. But John Thomson had that quality so few people retain beyond childhood: curiosity. Ten years travelling in the Far East followed. His lens took in a broad spectrum of human life that had never seen a camera: kings, princes, mandarins and beggars. He travelled to Siam in September 1865 … Thomson is an early street photographer and anticipates the photojournalism of the twentieth century. At the same time, his photographs formed the Victorian image of the Far East. Behind the coloniser is the missionary, the mapmaker and the photographer. Thomson’s endeavour was to record and classify with the eye of nineteenth-century social anthropology' (National Gallery in Bangkok, exhibition blog by Padraig Rooney, online).
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