This catalogue describes some 900 works published from 1550 to 1850, as well as 300 additional items reprinted in collective works, all in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It covers the first great phase of Western involvement in China, ranging from reports of envoys to khans
In the author's own words, this work endeavors to recreate, for the 20th-century reader, the sky and the apparitions that ornament it as they were conceived, imagined, and reacted to by the men of T'ang dynasty China. It explores what medeival Chinese thought they saw in the night sky