Red Star Over China

Large 8vo., lettered in gilt with star device to spine, and publisher’s name to foot; lacking the incredibly scarce dustwrapper; pp. [vii], 8-464; containing a map showing the route of the main forces of the Red Army on its long march, along with a further 16 captioned black and white photographic plates; a very good copy, brighter than often found, a little pushed to the spine tips; some foxing to the outer edges of the text block just beginning to encroach onto the outer margins. 

 First edition. 

Snow was an American journalist who first arrived in Shanghai in the summer of 1928 and quickly found work at the China Weekly Review, where he began to associate with prominent writers and intellectuals including Soong Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen. Later, he became a correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post and traveled widely throughout China, often on assignment for the Chinese Railway Ministry, visiting famine districts in Northwest China and what would later become the Burma Road, as well as reporting on the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

It was in 1936 that Snow travelled to Xi'an with the intention of writing a book about the Communist movement in China. By this time, he had amalgamated a series of interviews with important party leaders, and the book was to be the first to report to the West first-hand accounts of Communist-controlled areas which had emerged during the Long March. Stationed at the communist headquarters at Bao'an, he spent four months interviewing Mao and other Communist leaders, where he took dictation of Mao Zedong’s autobiography, the proofs of which were later carefully edited. In the Autumn of 1936 he published a first short account in the China Weekly Review, and the first appearance in book form was published in English by Gollancz the following year. An instant bestseller, it sold over 12,000 copies in the first month alone, and has been credited as being the first book to introduce both Chinese and foreign readers to Mao Zedong. It is still used today as an introduction to the early Communist movement in China. 

Scarce.  

SKU: 1800242