WALEY, Arthur (trans.); WU, Cheng'en.

£600 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Monkey. First edition, in the rare Duncan Grant-designed jacket, of this translation of Journey to the West, one of the four classic Chinese novels. Waley's adaptation first brought the text to the attention of Western audiences and remains in print. Keen to avoid too technical a style, he "sought to make his translations works of art, aiming at literature rather than philology" (ODNB).Waley was associated with the Bloomsbury group and is widely credited for opening Viriginia Woolf's eyes to the possibilities of Asian literature, for which he is acknowledged in the preface to Orlando (1928). Although the first impression print-run numbered 2,750 copies, these are now uncommon.

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