Harvard Librarian Finds 18th Century Manuscript

He went there just to thumb through some old journals, but came away with one of the biggest discoveries in the 53-year history of Harvard's Yenching Library.

Two weeks ago, Raymond Lum, an assistant librarian at the East Asian library, was in the stacks looking at a missionary journal when he discovered two sheets of folded paper inside.

Lum believes the parched and partly torn pages, dated in the late 1790's by a British diplomat. Lord Macartney, are the preliminary notes of Macartney's visit to China in the late 18th century. A full manuscript about the trip was eventually published.

Macartney's trip was the first British effort to form political relations with the Far Eastern nation. The diplomat was sent to China by King George III of England in 1792, according to the latest issue of a Harvard Library newsletter which reports Lum's find.

Lum prepared a rough transcription of Macartney's notes, which are composed on both sides of two sheets.

The notes, which begin on September 29, 1792 and appear to be part of a larger journal, chronicle the scenery, wildlife and weather viewed by Macartney during his stay in China.

Lum said yesterday that the notes "have probably been hidden away inside the 19th century missionary journal since the time that the latter came to Harvard."

Lum played down the importance of his find.

"It is more of a curiosity than an important document. It is doubtful that it will provide any new insight into early Western-Chinese diplomatic relations," Lum said.

Nevertheless, Eugene Wen-Chin Wu, head librarian of the Yenching Library, said the partial diary is the first find of its kind since the library first opened in 1928.

"Things like this do not occur very often, of course I am sure that similar things have happened at Widener over the years, but it is really just a matter of chance," he said.

No Harvard experts, either in the East Asian program or in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, could be reached who knew of Lum's find.

Wu said that it is not possible to rank Lum's find with other Yenching possessions because most of the library's collections are in other languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

"In addition, Macartney's work is in the form of an eyewitness account. It is much like a diary, and not too many manuscripts of this kind exist," added Wu.

Yenching houses the largest academic collection of East Asian books and manuscripts in the Western world, according to Lum.

What's There

The name "Acneas Anderson," heads the first of the four pages. Lum said that he did not at first know who Anderson was, but after consulting a scholarly review off Macartney's journal he discovered that Anderson was Macartney's personal servant during the mission.

"Anderson does not appear to have been a very important figure," said Lum, adding that a book Anderson wrote about Macartney's notes "sheds no light on the notes themselves.