The Book of Knowledge: The Children's Encyclopaedia in Shanghai

Three days before the May Fourth Movement broke out in Beijing, the Shanghai-based Chinese American Publishing Company put up an advertisement of The Book of Knowledge: The Children's Encyclopaedia for the publisher Grolier Society in New York.

source: North-China Daily News, 1 May 1919.

Whiteaway's import of The Readers Library in 1926

On 4 November 1926, Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co. placed an advertisement on South China Morning Post to promote its recently import of The Readers Library, London, offering 35 cents each or 3 for $1.00. It includes the following standard works (mainly British and American authors):

Alexander Dumas's The Three Musketeers
H. Rider Haggard's She and King Solomon's Mines
H. G. Wells's The Time Machine
Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
Charles Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, A Tale of Two Cities, and A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth
Achmed Abdullah's The Thief of Bagdad, A story from the Arabian Night
Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London
Bret Harte's The Luck of Roaring Camp
Washington Irving's Rep Van Winkle
Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and Kenilworth
Bulwer Lytton's Eugene Aram and The Last Days of Pompeii
George Eliot's The Million on the Floss
Harold Copping's The Pilgrim's Progress
J. Fenimore Cooper's The Pathfinder
Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad
Harold MacGrath's The Man on the Box
Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis [‎Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905]

The Readers Library, in the foreword of each volume, aspired to "bring the best-known novels of the world within the reach of the millions, by presenting at the lowest possible price per copy, in convenient size, on excellent paper, with beautiful and durable binding, a long series of the stories, copyright and non-copyright, which everyone has heard of and could desire to read.

Nothing of the kind has ever before been possible, even in the days when book production has been least expensive. To render it possible now it will be necessary that each volume should have a sale of hundreds of thousands of copies, and that many volumes of the series should in due course find their way into nearly every home, however humble, in the British Empire."

Further reference: Q. D. Leavis's Fiction And The Reading Public (1939), A Series of Series' Readers Library.

Helena May Library in 1936

Helena May Library
A fine collection of books available to members
by "Abigail"

...
The Library Committee consists of five members of the Helena May. This year, the Committee includes Mrs. A. V. Greaves (Chairman), Mrs. W. J. Roberts (Hon. Secretary) and Mesdames J. W. Anderson, G. M. D. D. Wolf and Harold Sheldon.
Every two weeks, this able Committee meets and a new selection of books are added to the Library.
"A selection of books are given to us regularly by Kelly and Walsh," Mrs. Greaves told me the other day. "Our Committee," she explained, "read over the books - in fact 'shroff' them." Some books are turned down and the others, of course, go on the shelves.
...
The Library ... has got a very catholic collection of books. They range from serious reading to books on cookery, the art of riding and "How to Play Contract Bridge."
...
Mrs. Greaves said, "...Most of our Miscellaneous books come from the 'Times Book Club.'"
Children's Section
"Another idea which we are at work on now is the building up of a really fine Children's Section. ..."
...
Of course, it is well-nigh impossible to give anything like a full list of the books in the Library.
Here are a few I saw the other day when I visited the Library.
"Last of the Empresses" (Daniele Vare); "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" (T. E. Lawrence); Bound copies of the "Hongkong Naturalist"; ... several of Cecil Roberts' books on the English country; "Son of Heaven" (Prince Der Ling); ... China Changes" (G. J. Yorke); ..."My Country and My People" (Lin Yutant); "In Search of Old Peking" (Arlington and Lewisohn). 

Source: South China Morning Post, Oct 22, 1936, p. 11.

Book bargain in Shanghai, 1919

In addition to the London-based Mudie's Library's book bargain advertisements (see below) on the North-China Daily News (NCDN) in 1919, the leading Shanghai bookseller Chinese American Publishing, aka the American Bookshop held book bargain sales in the shop regularly and posted advertisements on the same newspaper to attract customers to visit them on 26 Canton Road (see below).

The advert lists a wide range classic works including classical philosopher Plato and essayist Plutarch, sixteenth-century writer Cervantes and playwright Shakespeare (who died on 22 and 23 April 1616 respectively), nineteenth-century authors Burns, Balzac, Hugo and Maupassant, and the contemporary novelist Kipling. "In splendid bindings, and antique paper and clear type", they are offered readers, or more likely book collectors to furnish their houses, at special prices cheaper than publishers price.  

NCDN, 31 January 1919, p. 11.

NCDN, 24 February 1919, p. 15.

Other cook books 1917 & 1932

Chan, Shiu Wong. 1917. The Chinese cook book: Containing more than one hundred recipes for everyday food prepared in the wholesome Chinese way, and many recipes of unique dishes peculiar to the Chinese–including Chinese Pastry, “Stove Pastries,” and Chinese Candies" (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917). Chinese title: 中菜指南. 151 recipes.

The Chinese Students' Monthly, vol. 13, no. 5, March 1918, p. 290. Reviewed by (Miss) M. I. Han, Mount Holyoke

---   ---   ---   ---   ---

Nellie C. Wong's Chinese Dishes for Foreign Homes (1932 / 1933)
Nellie C. Wong's Chinese Dishes for Foreign Homes: A revised and enlarged edition of the popular “Chinese Recipes.” (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1932, xii + 87 p. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd., Second impression, 1933, xii + 98 p.). Handsewn on exterior. Printed in Shanghai. 86 recipes.
The owner of Nellie Wong Tea Shop in Peking. 
Kelly & Walsh's advertisement showing in A Guide to Catholic Shanghai (Shanghai: T'ou-se-we Press, 1937, facing p. 30) selling at $5.00 whilst F. L. Hawks's A Sketch of Chinese History at the same price and Juliet Bredon's Peking: A historical intimate description of its chief places of interest at $17.5.

The China Monthly Review, v. 66, 1933, p. 126.
The first edition of this worth-while book of Chinese recipes for foreign homes, escaped the review's attention, and the revised edition finds a hearty welcome to an all too-limited library of cook books. The author had a very valuable thought when she conceived the idea to compile a book of Chinese recipes, which are so scientifically correct, that given to the laymen for the first time, can be transferred into edible and tasty dishes for our foreign tables. Too often we have asked how to prepare these savory dishes which are given us by our genial Chinese hosts, and both the names of the ingredients and the art of attaining the fine delicate flavor are beyond out ability. This book is delightful and fills a long felt need in the foreign home.
There are nearly one-hundred Chinese recipes, easy-to-follow, found in Miss Wong's book, accompanied by excellent illustrations on how to prepare a table for a Chinese dinner, vegetables, correct method of preparing Chinese tea, which is a fine art in itself, and signifies the oldest Chinese word of welcome.

According to Chandra Oroszváry's Chinese American cuisine and the Chinese restaurant industry in the United States (MA unpublished dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009, p. 48), some of Wong's recipes "had originally appeared in American newspapers and magazines such as the Herald Tribune and Good Housekeeping."