1st Chinese Edition Profiles in Courage, with Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and 3 More Published by USIA

Five books published in Hong Kong between 1961 and 1967 by the United States Information Agency through their Chinese language imprint, World Today Press 今日世界社. Good condition only: these were inexpensively produced, and the Kennedy and Twain in particular were clearly read. Titles include:

•John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage, 1961. A more impressive production than the rest: dust jacket, half-title, text illustrations. First edition in Chinese.
•Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1963.
•Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1964.
•Frances Whitney, ed. An Outline of American History, 1965.
•Sam Hunter, Modern American Painting and Sculpture, 1966.
•Adlai Stevenson, Looking Outward, 1967 (bilingual English and Chinese).

From the mid 1950s through the mid 1970s the United States Information Agency (known overseas as the United States Information Service) published Chinese language books and magazines in Hong Kong under the imprint World Press Today. Their book list included over a hundred titles, all relating to the United States, including classic fiction, liberal democratic philosophy and practice, and surveys of American history and arts — a sort of Readers' Digest and Saturday Evening Post America with a little bit of heft. The USIA enlisted established Chinese writers resident in Taiwan and Hong Kong to do the translating, and in general the books were well received. During the martial law period in Taiwan, World Today Press was an important source of news and literature from the outside world, and for many immigrants from China proper to Hong Kong, it provided an introduction to the West.

Despite the size and importance of World Today's output, institutional holdings are spotty.