A History of Chinese Literature

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About this book

A History of Chinese Literature is by Herbert A. Giles, Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge and former British consul at Ningpo. His preface describes the book as the first attempt in any language, including Chinese, to produce a history of Chinese literature, a literature already in existence some six centuries before the Christian era.

Translated verse runs through the pages. One passage quotes an ancient Ode about the completion of a palace, in Legge's translation, and discusses its lines about a tile and a sceptre. Another gives a poem by a writer inclined to Taoist notions, who prefers a quiet nook, an old volume, wild flowers and birdsong to the scarlet-tasselled hat of state.

About the author

Herbert Allen Giles

Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935) was a British sinologist and diplomat who spent 35 years as Cambridge's professor of Chinese. He began as a British diplomat in China and modified Thomas Wade's romanisation system for Mandarin, producing the Wade-Giles system. He received the Prix Stanislas Julien in 1924. His titles include "China and the Chinese".