Complete and unabridged, with 58 full-page plates by Shitao, Pierre-Jacques Volaire and Joseph Wright of Derby. The first book of Kai Lung, told in a formal, flowery English that never once breaks - a beggar-poet's tales within tales, each more elaborate than the last. Bramah invented the manner and nobody has successfully copied it. This edition includes 58 plates of paintings bound with the text, among them works by Tibout Regters, Frans van Mieris the Younger and Balthasar-Paul Ommeganck, dating from 1670 to 1800.