History of the Great and Mighty Kingdome of China and the Situation Thereof
Compiled by the Padre Juan González de Mendoza and now reprinted from the early translation of R. Parke

A sixteenth-century account of the history and geography of China, in a two-volume 1853 edition.

Juan González de Mendoza (Author), R. Parke (Translated by), George Staunton (Edited by), Richard Henry Major (Edited by)

9781108008105, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 August 2010

272 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.35 kg

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. The two-volume account by Juan González de Mendoza of the history and geography of China was translated into English in 1588. It was the first detailed description of China available in English, though the introduction to this 1853 edition reviews several earlier reports by western travellers. Mendoza did not himself visit China; his first volume is derived largely from the papers of Martin de Rada, an Augustinian friar who went to China on a missionary expedition in 1575.

Introduction
Dedication
To the reader
Part I: 1. The description of the kingdome
2. Of the temperature of the kingdome of China
3. Of the fertilitie of this kingdome
4. Of the fertilitie of this kingdome (cont.)
5. Of the antiquitie of this kingdome
6. The bignesse of this kingdome of China
7. Of the 15 provinces that are in this kingdome
8. Of the cities and townes
9. Of the wonderful buildings in this kingdome
10. Of the dispositions, countenance, with apparell and other exercises of the people of this countrie
Part II: 1. Of the number of gods that they do worship
2. I do prosecute the religion they have
3. How little they doo esteeme their idols
4. Of lots which they doo vse
5. Of the opinion they have of the beginning of the worlde
6. How they hold for a certaintie that the soul is immortall
7. Of their temples
8. The order that they have in burying of the dead
9. Of their ceremonies
10. How that in all this mightie kingdome there is no poor folks
Part III: 1. How manie kinges hath beene in this kingdome
2. Of the court and pallace of the king
3. The number of such subjects as doo pay vnto the king tribute
4. The tribute that the king hath
5. Of the men of war
6. More of the men of war
7. Of a law among the Chinos
8. Of the kings royall counsell
9. Of such presidents and ministers as the king doth put in everie province
10. How is prosecuted the manner how they do choose their governors
11. Of the visitors that the king doth send
12. Of their prisons they doo vse
13. Of the characters and letters
14. Of the examination
15. How that with them they have had the vse of artilery
16. Of the antiquitie and manner of printing bookes
17. The substance and manner of those bookes
18. The order that these Chinos observe in making bankets
19. How they salute one another in this countrie
20. Of the great closenesse that the women of this kingdome do live in
21. The fashion of their ships
22. A curious order that these Chinos have
23. Of the curtesie that the king of this mightie kingdome doth
24. Of the ambassage that the king of Spaine did send.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH]