Moment in Peking: A Novel of Contemporary Chinese Life

New York: The John Day Company, 1939. Hardcover. 8vo. Black cloth with gilt spine lettering and brown front board decoration. 815pp. Very good. Mildest of binding wear, else tight and internally near fine; endpapers a tad age toned. Attractive first edition of this hefty first novel (written in English) by the Chinese polymath (1895-1976): novelist, philosopher, linguist, translator, inventor. Nicely signed by him in his usual tiny script on front flyleaf. From the collection of Senator Adlai E. Stevenson III (1930-2021), with interesting nonauthorial inscription on inner flyleaf to Stevenson's mother: "For Ellen Borden Stevenson / How long I am to / lose the Stevensons! / Very sincerely and / appreciatively yours, / Verta W. Channon / December one, / 1939." Famed socialite Ellen Borden Stevenson (1907-72) was daughter of John Borden (1884-1961, wealthy Chicago businessman, explorer, yachtsman and polo player); she married Adlai E. Stevenson II in 1928 and their controversial divorce in 1949 while he held the Illinois governorship raised eyebrows and some believe harmed his presidential electability. FDR's Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox offered the future governor the position of his principal attorney and special assistant, a post he undertook in 1940; the Stevensons moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C., which occasioned this farewell gift from a Chicago friend on the eve of their departure.