BOOK REVIEWS
doing of proper things at the proper time.
149
On the lighter side, and perhaps this is the main intention of the author, we are treated to a series of ‘delights'. A liberal dose of humour is always injected into each and every chapter. The author recollects, for example, and perhaps not without some pleasure, in Nigeria, how, one morning, the train in which he was travelling suddenly stopped in the dead of nowhere so that he, then acting-Governor, could have a leisurely breakfast without being jostled about. In the same breath, we can say that the book is very 'domestic'. The description of family life, in very pleasant and readable prose, is ever-present. We are privileged to know how Mrs. Grantham goes about re-decorating residences, how they loved and adored their cats and dogs but inevitably always have to part with them; and how they adored flowers and plants and how one species, found in Hong Kong, was named Camellia Granthamiana. Such pleasant reminiscences, which are very seldom found in other books, would greatly interest the reader, I trust.
University of Hong Kong
WILLIAM WAUNG
SEALS OF CHINESE PAINTERS AND COLLECTORS OF THE MING AND CH'ING PERIOD, Victoria Contag and Wang Chi-ch'ien. Hong Kong University Press, 1966. 726 pages. HK$200.00.
The re-issuance of this valuable and useful work in a revised and supplemented edition is a welcome event, if not to a very large public, at least to a growing number of appreciative individuals with more than passing interest in Chinese seals and painting. The original 1940 edition which contained upwards of 9,000 seal facsimiles, taken from authentic paintings in China by means of a finger-print camera, has for long been generally unavailable except for occasional rare copies at prohibitive prices. This edition adds a supplement containing many new seals copied from American private and public collections as well as additional information gathered in the intervening three decades.
The title is somewhat misleading, though in an easily forgivable way, for while the bulk of reproduced seals are from the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties, there are also included a number from the Sung and Yuan periods as well.