YU LI CHAO ZHUAN JINGSHI [Buddhist compilation, chiefly on the Underworld]. Qing Dynasty, circa 1820. Guangzhou, woodblock printed, fifty double pages including four double pages of illustrations, traditionally-bound and rebound in contemporary half calf marble boards, the front panel with gilt lettering reading “Description of Hades from Dr Morrison, Chinese Interpreter to the East Indian Company, Canton, Dec 27th 1822”, 25 x 15.5cm. Provenance: Collection of James Morrison (1814-1843); thence gifted to Henry C Lamont in 1824 [hand-written dedication]. 清約一八二零《玉歷鈔傳警世》定文堂版 來源： 原詹姆斯·莫里森（1814-1843）收藏，於1824年贈與亨利· C· 拉蒙特（Henry C Lamont）。（手寫題詞） Robert Morrison (1782-1834) arrived in Guangzhou in 1807 as the first Protestant missionary of China. He is considered to be the first systematic Western collector of Chinese books and his collection is currently held at SOAS with a full description having been published by A. West (1998) Catalogue of the Morrison Collection. Among the works he collected were morality books printed by Xinjianzhai between 1773 and 1821, including the Yuli Chaozhuan Jingshi [Records and tales of the jade regulations to warn the world] (Yau Chi-on (2017) in Religious Publishing and Print Culture in Modern China: 1800-2012, p 190). The book is a vernacular text about how to cultivate good and ward off evil, fusing notions of Confucian virtue, Buddhist karmic retribution and Daoist notions about the need to do good. M.D. Santos has noted that it was widely distributed to Chinese temples and that the act of the book’s sponsors, printing, carving and distribution itself warded off the dangers it warns of. The material functioning of the text provides an intriguing parallel to the spiritual benefits Christians believe they derive from proselytism and from the distribution of Christian religious texts. One wonders therefore whether Morrison, by acquiring the text, was endeavoring to find ways to situate Christianity within existing religious distributive channels.