The People of Tibet
Oxford: Oxford (University Press) at the Clarendon Press, 1928. Charles Bell (photography). Hardcover. Not ex-libris. Large 8vo. Pp. xix, [1], 319, [1]. Frontis. photo of a noble Lhasa family with two Living Buddhas. Generously illustrated throughout with the author's photography. Three maps, of which two are folding. Appendices; bibliography. Bound in full blue cloth. While the book is tight and corners are sharp, it's a slightly defective copy inasmuch as the front board has spots where the cloth was bleached. Former owner name (Albert Ravenholt) on front free endpaper. Good+. Item #6771 First edition of a stately book production commensurate with Bell's groundbreaking scholarship. The accompanying photos, by Bell, are exceptional for capturing Tibet in the late 1920s. In his introduction to Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet, Peter Fleming mentions Bell and his remarkably close relationship with the 13th Dalai Lama, unusual due to Bell's status as a foreigner. Such was the trust put in Bell by the Tibetan people.
Ravenholt was a foreign correspondent during WWII, mostly writing for UPI. In Shanghai, 1946, Ravenholt married Chungking-based OSS officer Marjorie Severyns, Gen. A. C. Wedemeyer presiding. Severyns had been stationed in Chungking, working on psychological warfare. For more on their war experiences, please see China Reporting An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s (Berkeley: University of California Press, (1987)).
Price: $100.00