LEGGE, James (trans.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Dukes Yin, Hwan, Chang, Min, He, Wan, Seuen and Ch'ing; and the Prolegomena. First edition of Legge's translation of the Spring and Autumn Annals, one of the Five Confucian Classics, and the canonical Zuo Zhuan commentary on the text. This set belonged to Sir Cecil Clementi, the 17th governor of Hong Kong, and has his bookplates. Legge (1815-1897) was the Victorian era's most accomplished translator of classical Chinese poetry, literature, and philosophy. He published his seven-volume Chinese Classics series between 1861 and 1872. The sheets for this edition were printed at the office of the London Missionary Society in Hong Kong and sold in both Hong Kong and London. This copy has a cancel title page naming Henry Frowde as publisher, and his address - Amen Corner - suggests this copy was bound from unsold sheets in the early 1880s.

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