Chinese Sketches

Description

These Sketches is indebted of their continuity primarily to repeated journeys in the cities of China, carrying a pen and paper. Most of them were transcribed for Herbert’s pal Mr. F. H. Balfour of Shanghai, and by him issued in the columns of the Celestial Empire. These were improved and semi re-drafted, others are just seen as of this time.

Herbert Allen Giles was an English diplomat and sinologist who was an educator of Chinese at Cambridge University for 35 years. Henry was taught at Charterhouse School before becoming an English diplomat in China. He altered a Mandarin Chinese romanisation system instituted by Thomas Wade, giving rise to the well known Wade-Giles Chinese romanisation system. Some of his several writings were conversions of the Analects of Confucius, the Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching), the Chuang Tzu, and, in 1892, the largely issued A Chinese-English Dictionary.

Herbert A. Giles was the fourth son of John Allen Giles, an Anglican clergy. After attending Charterhouse, Herbert became an English diplomat to Qing China, working from 1867 to 1892. He also spent a number of years at Fort Santo Domingo in Tamsui, northern part of Taiwan. His children were Bertram, Valentine, Lancelot, Edith, Mable, and Lionel Giles. Herbert A. Giles was the only second instructor of Chinese language assigned at the University of Cambridge, following Thomas Wade. During his assignment, there were no other sinologists at Cambridge. Herbert was thus able to spend a lot of his time with the historical Chinese works formerly shared by Thomas Wade, printing what he decided to convert from his diverse reading in Chinese text.

His future writings such as a history of the Chinese Pictorial Art and his 1914 Hibbert Lectures on Confucianism were released in 1915 by Williams and Norgate (de).
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