A Journey From St Petersburg to Pekin 1719 - 1722, J. Bell: Hardback: 1st Ed

A Journey From St Petersburg to Pekin 1719 - 1722

By John Bell.

Published by Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1965. First Edition. Hardback cover with dustjacket (unclipped), 248 pages. Black & white illustration and photography throughout.

CONDITION
Overall fair condition - see photos. Some wear/fading to dustjacket commensurate with age. Foxing to head. No names or writing. Images crisp & clear throughout.

John Bell, a Glasgow-trained doctor with a young man's urge to see the world, a went to St Petersburg in 1714, as a physician at the Court of the Tsar Peter I. The Emperor had a liking for the Scots, and through his influence Bell managed to sate his wanderlust by journeying, with embassies, to such remote parts as Siberia and Persia; to none more remote, however, than the 'forbidden city' of Pekin, whither he went, in 1719, in the train of Ambassador Izmailov, who was charged with the conduct of delicate diplomatic business with the Emperor K'ang Hsi of China.

Forty years later, Bell wrote up and published his travel journals, which met with immediate and merited success throughout Europe. Certainly this account of the long trans- Siberian journey, by river, horse and sledge, first Lake Baikal, to then across the Gobi desert to the Great Wall and on to Pekin, is a narrative full of informed and accurate description; good-humoured, shrewd, and observant

For us today, however, even keener interest and enjoyment will be taken in the second half of the book- Bell's account of China. This detached observer savoured the Emperor's Court, its banquets and entertainments, and the endless procrastinating protocol of the diplomatic in-fighting, with the palate of a connoisseur.

The book is introduced and edited by Mr. I. Stevenson, whose career in the Foreign Service has taken him to Pekin,
and given him an intimate knowledge of Sino-Russian diplomatic history. He has tracked down several important col-
lateral narratives, as well as hitherto unpublished papers of Bell's, and used these to construct an introduction which casts fresh light on a period of diplomatic history that has great relevance today.

(Bindery shelves)