This rare map of Beijing by Frank Dorn is considered the most iconic pictorial map of Beijing published in the 20th Century, one of the great maps of the golden era of pictorial mapmaking. The map is ringed with a series of cartoon vignettes illustrating the history of the city from ancient times to 1936, offering a host of interesting ethnographic and iconographic information about Beijing and its environs.

Complete Title: A Map and History of Peiping; formerly known as Peking; capital of provinces, princedoms, and kingdoms since 1121 B.C.; in 1264 A.D. the capital of the Mongol Empire of Kublai Khan; made the capital of the Ming Empire and built as it is today by Yung Lo in 1421; continued as the capital of the Chinese Empire through the Ming and Ching Dynasties; and now a city which will live long in the memory of man as one of the greatest the world has ever known. Completed on this fifth day of February in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Thirty-six’.

Frank Dorn was an artist, writer and military officer. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute and became an accomplished cartoonist. After graduation from West Point, he was assigned a post in the Philippines. While living in China, Dorn made his popular pictorial map of “Peiping”. He later served in the field as an advisor to a Chinese army. A fluent speaker of Chinese, Dorn’s most important military role was in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II. There he served with Deputy Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army forces, General “Uncle Joe” Stilwell, during the Burma campaign from 1942 to 1944 and served as a commanding officer in 1944-45. A 1942 Life Magazine article about the Burma mission stated that, “Dorn, an artist, drew Stilwell’s campaign maps.”