First English edition. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. London. 1855. Two volumes. Octavo. half title, title, xxxii, 421pp, folding coloured map frontispiece (with no tears); half title, title, viii, 440pp, 24pp publisher's catalogue. Original embossed blue cloth, "Bound by Edmonds and Remnants, London" plate to end pastedown. A little bumped and worn to edges, corners and spine. Gilt lettering to spine. Endpaper publisher's adverts to both volumes. Free endpapers show slight offsetting from the adverts. Edges untrimmed and a little darkened. Occasional spotting/foxing.  Translated by Mrs Percy Sinnett. Neat signature of J. W. Gallant to feps. Neat signature of Oswald Penrhyn dated 1856 to versos of ffeps of both volumes. PROVENANCE : signature of Oswald Henry Leycester Penrhyn (1828 - 1918). Cousin of Augustus Hare, and executor of his will, mentioned in Hare's The Story of My Life. His father Edward assumed the name of Penrhyn in lieu of Leycester, in accordance with the will of Baroness Penrhyn (nee Anne Susanna Warburton of Penrhyn Castle, Llandygai) in 1817. The Abbé Évariste Régis Huc (1813 - 1860) Missionary and traveller. "We were about to become acquainted, in China, with a civilisation extremely unlike that of Europe, but not less complete in its kind. The climate, too, would be no longer the same, and the means of communication would be greatly superior to those of Tartary and Thibet."