BREWITT-TAYLOR, C. H.

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Chats in Chinese. A Translation of the T'an Lun Hsin Pien. First edition, adapting into English a textbook focused on the Beijing dialect. Intended for Western learners, the contents include dialogues from many modern situations, chosen to reflect the Westernization of Chinese commercial life and major cities. Appended to the "chats" are two alphabetized vocabularies, 135 pages in total, employing English, written Chinese, and romanized pronunciation.Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor (1857-1938) sailed for China aged just 22 and worked at the Foochow Arsenal and then for the Imperial Maritime Customs. Encouraged to learn Chinese by Herbert Allen Giles, he translated Chinese literature and legal documents. In 1925, he published the first translation in English of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, an initial draft (and part of the manuscript for Chats) having gone up in flames during the Boxer Uprising.

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