1 - Interlinear Presentation. A short passage of two or three lines in Chinese is immediately translated into English before moving onto another short passsage in Chinese. In this way, a Chinese-literate reader can easily assess the level of the translator's competence, the appropriateness of his rendition, and the extent of his fidelity to the original -- whether it is an entire passage, a full sentence, a short phrase, or a single word. (A unique feature)
2 - Rhymed Passages. Lao Tzu uses rhymed expression for emphasis. Of the essay's 364 passages, at least 59 passages are rhymed -- these 59 passages are all rhymed in this translation. Since one can learn a great deal by reading just these rhymed passages, they are also collected as Appendix C at the back of this volume. (Another unique feature)
3 - Reference-Specific Annotations. This volume has 500+ foonotes.
4 - Comparison With Confucius's Analects. Dao De Jing was written to challenge Confucius and his school of thought. This volume culls 71 direct quotations from the Analects (as translated by the translator in an earlier work) for comparison. These quotations, along with other comments, are collected as Appendix E. (A unique feature)
5 - Comparison With Sun Tzu's Art of War. Dao De Jing is also regarded as a treatise on war. This volume culls 46 directo quotations from Sun Tzu's Art of War (as translated by the translator from another of his earlier works) for comparison. These quotations, along with other comments, are collected as Appendix F. (A unique feature)
6 - Lao Tzu's year-by-year chronology. Appendix A, on five pages. (A unique feature)
7 - List of Dao De Jing in English translation. Appendix H, on 14 pages, listing 124 unduplicated work.
8 - Key-word index. Appendix I, on 20 pages.
