George Arthur Plimpton and His
Chinese Connection

SOREN EDGREN

Publisher and philanthropist George A. Plimpton
(18 5 5-19 3 6) is well known as a benefactor of the Colum¬
bia libraries, but it is less well known that he was responsi¬
ble for a small group of specimens of early Chinese printing now in
the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The books were acquired
on an expedition to China and the Far East in 1920, on which he
was accompanied by his wife and their son Francis, then a junior at
Amherst College. Our pursuit of Plimpton's "Chinese connection"
introduces us to a number of eminent Chinese and offers a fascinat¬
ing glimpse into one facet of his biography, the reconstruction of
which has depended on several sources, including the George A.
Plimpton Papers at the Library and a typescript copy of Far East
Diary 1920 by Francis T P Plimpton (1900-1983).

The group of books in question consists of eight items in ten vol¬
umes, or fascicles, bound in the traditional Chinese manner: folded
leaves gathered at the spine and simply stitched with silk thread.
Bundled together and shelved with miscellaneous uncatalogued
books in the Chinese format, their provenance was at first puzzling.
Each work contained a slip of paper with descriptions in English;
seven were stamped with the name Smith, and one was stamped
Plimpton. David Eugene Smith (1860-1944), professor and histo¬
rian of mathematics, also had donated his important library to
Columbia. Furthermore, he had made an extended tour of the Far
East before the First World War, and it was well known that on
many subsequent travels he had procured numerous books for the
collection of his close friend George Plimpton. Nevertheless, a
meaningful clue to the source of the books was to be found else¬
where. Two of the books' covers bore inscriptions by the noted Chi¬
nese bibliophile Fu Zengxiang(1872-1949), and one was of partic¬
ular interest. It was a presentation inscription to Plimpton
unambiguously dated April 19, 1920. How then did George Plimp-
 

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