price, demonstrating the state’s determination to ensure that the Cultural Revolution’s cult of personality touched all state subjects. This selection of quotations from Lin was first published in Chinese the preceding year. As the driving force behind the growth of the Mao cult, Lin inevitably accrued a level of political power and influence that left him in day-to-day control of a large swathe of China’s government and party bureaucracy. His policy statements and speeches received extensive coverage in state media, while at rallies and political meetings he wielded political legitimacy flowing from his unique association with Mao. As Lin’s status as Mao’s chosen successor grew, so did his cult, with collections of his speeches and utterances printed to further study of his contribution to the Cultural Revolution’s various ideological “breakthroughs”. Eventually, Lin’s personal prestige became too much for Mao. In 1971, he mysteriously died in a plane crash while fleeing with his family to the Soviet Union. Overnight, he vanished from the history books. 2 volumes, quarto. Original brown card wrappers, title and five-pointed star to spines and front covers in red. Wrappers marked and with some paste- staining, stain to margins of first and last few leaves in vol. II, contents otherwise clean. Overall a very good copy of this cheaply produced book. £10,000 [151615] 71 LINCOLN, Abraham. Appointment document signed by Lincoln as president, and countersigned by his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton. Washington, DC: 2 March 1863 signed by lincoln during the civil war Military appointment signed by Abraham Lincoln at the height of the American Civil War, four months before the Battle of Gettysburg. The document appoints Carl Proegler an assistant surgeon of volunteers, retroactively effective from October 4, 1862. Dr Proegler (1837–1907) was born in Cologne and educated at Erlangen, Würzburg, and Berlin, graduating from the latter in 1859, and studying in Paris and London the following year, before emigrating to the United States. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he broke off from the practice that he had established in New York and “offered his services to the Government and was appointed Junior Surgeon of a hospital in Washington, where he remained for a few months. He afterward served as surgeon of various regiments, including the Twenty-fifth New York Infantry, of which he had charge in his professional capacity for about ten months. At the close of the war Dr. Proegler entered the navy and was made fleet surgeon under General Farragut – a position which he filled until 1868” ( Memorial Record of Northeastern Indiana , 1896, p. 225). Proegler returned to Germany during the Franco-Prussian War, but in 1872 came back to America and settled in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where “from the beginning he maintained a place among the most able practitioners of this section of the State” (ibid.). A member of the Allen County Medical Society, he was twice secretary to the state board of health. Partly engraved military appointment on vellum with the sections accomplished in manuscript (44.5 × 33 cm). Mounted, framed, and glazed with UV conservation glass in dark wood with gilt slip (64 × 52 cm). Attractive cartouche of the American eagle at the head, and large trophy of arms at the foot, engraved by J. V. N. and O. H. Throop. Originally folded into sixths leaving light creases as usual – it was common to carry such documents as instruments of authority or means of identification – with two very small losses at the confluence of the upper centre folds, some light soiling verso, both signatures a little faded but still clear. Blue wafer seal at left, with one small chip, and War Department docketing notations at upper left. £8,000 [90344]
70
70 LIN, Biao. Lin fu zhuxi yulu (“Quotations From Vice- Chairman Lin”). Beijing: Beijing mangwen chubanshe, 1967 a scarce braille edition of the revolutionary wisdom of mao’s “closest comrade in arms” First edition in Braille, first printing, one of 500 copies, of this collection of sayings by Lin Biao, published to ensure nobody was exempt from his burgeoning cult of personality. Editions of Lin’s writings transformed him into China’s number two fountain of ideological wisdom, with a power base that would eventually rival that of Mao himself. Scarce, with no copies recorded institutionally. The Chinese government had introduced a uniform Chinese Braille system in 1953, and by the mid-1970s there were over 170 organizations in China catering to the blind which all required copies of the latest propaganda publications. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Beijing mangwen chubanshe (Beijing Braille Press) was one of just two publishers in the country with the facilities to produce Braille books, and it shouldered the task of producing the majority of translations, including the present work. The high cost of production for works in Braille (due to the large quantity of paper required) was subsidized by the state rather than passed on to customers through the retail
70
LEADERSHIP
54
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker