Brian Hodgson lived in Nepal from 1820 to 1843 during which time he wrote and published extensively on Nepalese culture, religion, natural history, architecture, ethnography and linguistics. Contributors from leading historians of Nepal and South Asia and from specialists in Buddhist studies, art history, linguistics, ornithology and ethnography, critically examine Hodgson's life and achievement within the context of his contribution to scholarship. Many of the drawings photographed for this book have not previously been published.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is home to the world's largest and richest collection of works by Suzuki Harunobu (1725?-70), the first great artist of the full-colour Japanese woodcut (nishiki-e). This complete and very detailed catalogue, compiled and revised intermittently over forty years, describes and illustrates in colour 721 single-sheet prints, including 589 by Harunobu himself. Most of these designs were produced in the 1760s, the majority during the six years from 1765 to 1770. Harunobu is famous for his sylph-like young women (and young men); but, as the catalogue shows,...