Happy Chinese New Year – Year of the Snake

We would like to start this blog post by wishing a Happy New Year to all those who celebrated the Chinese New Year this week. The featured image at the head of this post is of a design for the game of Snakes and Ladders made by a Maharashtra artist c.1800. It is a beautiful artwork with gold illumination in its border. It hangs in our reading Room and is much admired by researchers coming to use the collections.

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Last year, the Society was grateful to receive a donation of books from the library of Derek Davis, who passed away on 8 July 2023. Derek was a member of the Society who served on Council for several years, and who contributed to and supported our work in myriad ways. In particular, Derek was a user and advocate of the Society’s library. Derek’s literary and scholarly interests led to an article on ‘Premchand plays chess’ for the Society’s journal in 2015 and, as part of the Society’s bicentenary celebrations, a translation with commentary of Pushkin’s ‘A journey to Arzrum during the 1829 campaign’. This was published as a special stand-alone Supplement to JRAS in 2022.

Derek’s wide interests in history and Asian studies were reflected in his own personal library, which he built up over many years. Last year, we were pleased to accept a selection of Derek’s books to add to the Society’s collection.

Last week, while cataloguing this collection, we made a welcome discovery. Derek owned an immaculate four-volume edition of E. G. Browne’s A Literary History of Persia (Cambridge, 1928-30). This is an important work in its own right, but Derek’s set further contained annotations on the front flyleaves by David Cowan, an Arabist who was based for many years at SOAS. Notably, the second volume is inscribed ‘David Cowan, Bletchley, 23.12.43’. Cowan was reportedly stationed at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, and this inscription suggests he acquired the volumes during that time.

While we don’t know of any personal links between Derek and David Cowan, this association highlights the organic connections that can emerge between collectors with similar interests over the generations. We are pleased that these particular associations are now included in the Society’s library, where the books can be consulted by other scholars with related interests in the future.

We are grateful to Diana Davis for donating Derek’s books and papers for her help with this post.

Edward Weech.

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Derek was a valued Fellow of the Society who served on both Council and Committees for many years. We, as a Society, depend on our membership to help create a living vibrant community that is as relevant to Asian studies in the 21st century as it was when it was first founded in 1823. From time to time we feature a Fellow on our website. Our latest feature is on Cheryl Porter, conservator and Director of the Montefiascone Project Summer School in Italy. Cheryl was Head of Conservation and Deputy Director of the Thesaurus Islamic Foundation and National Library of Egypt Islamic manuscript conservation project. She specialises in the history of colours used to paint Islamic, Western and Hebrew manuscripts. We are delighted that Cheryl agreed to be profiled and you can read about Cheryl and her connection with the Royal Asiatic Society here.

If you would like to read some of our earlier member profiles they can still be found on our website in the Member Profile Archive.

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Before finishing the blog post, we would like to remind you that on Thursday, 6 February, 6.30 pm, we will host our first lecture of 2025. Sue Brunning, Mélodie Doumy, Yu-Ping Luk and Elisabeth O’Connell, curators at the British Library and British Museum, will talk about the current exhibitions at their institutions on the Silk Roads. The British Museum’s exhibition Silk Roads takes audiences on a journey across Asia, Africa and Europe, exploring the movement of people, objects and ideas in the period 500 to 1000 CE. The British Library’s exhibition A Silk Road Oasis: Life in Ancient Dunhuang transports visitors to the vibrant town of Dunhuang — a hub of trade, culture, and religion in present-day Northwest China — highlighting the experiences of those who lived, passed through, or left their mark there. We look forward to hearing the insights of these curators.

We hope you will be able to join us on this occasion.

Nancy Charley, 31 January 2025.