Balzac in Shanghai, Chinese American Publishing Company, and Ling-feng Yeh (葉靈鳳)

Recently a 1928-edition of Balzac's Droll Stories with Ling-feng Yeh's (葉靈鳳) bookplate, aka ex libris, resurfaced in Hong Kong antique book auction.

It probed me to browse through my NCDN database to find Balzac's books in the foreign book market of Shanghai in late 1920s and early 1930s. 

The 1930 advertisement of the Chinese American Publishing Company (中美圖書公司) below caught my attention. The American bookshop offered a 18-volume set of Balzac at a relatively affordable on-sale price $75 (originally $150). 

There were at least three sets of this 18-volume edition in the 1900s published by three different publishers (the 1842 edition by Charles C. Bigelow should be presumably an antique collection), the Philadelphia-based Avil Publishing Company (1901), and two New-York-based publishers: Merrill & Baker (circa. 1901) and Harper & Brothers (1900). 

Although the bookstore was, among others, an agent of Harper & Brothers, I am not absolutely sure which edition was on offer. I will look through my database later. 

source: NCDN, 9 March, 1930 (Sunday).