Customer Reviews

The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge's Oriental Pilgrimage

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This book takes a detailed look at the Victorian-era translation of China in the context of both a symbolic and literal pilgrimage to the Orient. It may be said to be an intellectual biography of James Legge. I liked the book because of the extensive, well-researched footnotes. I would fully and unreservedly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the trials and tribulations of the Victorian-era translation of China. While the book requires a small commitment of time from the reader, it provides in return a unique and fully formed picture of an interesting subject.

In an ambitious yet rippingly successfull break from the staid academic tradition of endnotes, Dr. Girardot delivers a veritable tour-de-force with his latest scholarly work, "The Victorian Translation of China: James Legge's Oriental Pilgrimage." The reader will delight in literally hundreds of footnotes detailing the Missionary James Legge's symbolic and literal pilgrimage to the China of yore, detailing and amplifying on such electrifying subjects such as: "How does Legge relate to Confucianism through Christianity?"; "What is Max Müller 'Motto'?"; and finally, "Who is General Tso, and why is his chicken so good?". Not since "An Annotated Transliteration of the Alphabet", by Dr. Farles Pikquens (ret.) has such a well-researched book so thoroughly expanded vistas of hermeneutical inquiry into this otherwise "forgotten Victorian sage".