Herbert Allen Giles Gu Hongming Popular Books

Herbert Allen Giles Gu Hongming Biography & Facts

A Chinese–English Dictionary (1892), compiled by the British consular officer and sinologist Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935), is the first Chinese–English encyclopedic dictionary. Giles started compilation after being rebuked for criticizing mistranslations in Samuel Wells Williams' (1874) A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language. The 1,461-page first edition contains 13,848 Chinese character head entries alphabetically collated by Beijing Mandarin pronunciation romanized in the Wade–Giles system, which Giles created as a modification of Thomas Wade's (1867) system. Giles' dictionary furthermore gives pronunciations from nine regional varieties of Chinese, and three Sino-Xenic languages Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Giles revised his dictionary into the 1,813-page second edition (1912) with the addition of 67 entries and numerous usage examples. History Herbert Giles served as a British consular officer in late Qing dynasty China until from 1867 to 1892. After his return to England, he was appointed the second professor of Chinese at the University of Cambridge, in succession to Thomas Francis Wade. They are renowned for developing what was later called the Wade–Giles romanization system of Chinese, which Giles' A Chinese–English Dictionary firmly established as the standard in the Western world until the 1958 official international pinyin system. In 1867, Giles passed the competitive Foreign Office examination for a Student Interpretership in China, and began studying the Chinese language at Peking. He later criticized his first Chinese book, a Part II reprint of Robert Morrison's (1815–1823) A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, in Three Parts, because it failed to mark aspiration, "much as if an English–Chinese dictionary, for the use of the Chinese, were published without the letter h, showing no difference between the conjunction and and the [h]and of the body". Herbert A. Giles wrote some 60 publications on Chinese culture and language (see Wikisource list), which may be divided into four broad categories: reference works, language textbooks, translations, and miscellaneous writings. His pioneering reference books established new standards of accuracy. Of all his publications, Giles was most proud of (1892, 1912) A Chinese–English Dictionary, and (1898) A Chinese Biographical Dictionary. Giles' textbooks for Chinese language learners include (1873) A Dictionary of Colloquial Idioms in the Mandarin Dialect and two Chinese phrasebooks transliterated phonetically according to the English alphabet, "so that anyone could pick up the book and read off a simple sentence with a good chance of being understood": the (1872) Chinese without a Teacher and (1877) Handbook of the Swatow Dialect: With a Vocabulary for Teochew dialect. His wide-ranging translations cover many genres of Chinese literature. Probably the best known are (1880, 1916) Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, (1884, 1922) Gems of Chinese Literature, and (1889, 1926) Chuang Tzŭ, Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer. Giles' other writings include some of the first general histories of China, the (1901) A History of Chinese Literature, (1906) Religions of Ancient China, and (1911) The Civilization of China. Herbert Giles says he decided to compile A Chinese–English Dictionary after his review of Williams' A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language "brought down on my head many objurgations from the author's friends". As Giles explains in his previously unpublished (c. 1918–1925) typescript memoirs, [The] review was of Dr Williams' Syllabic Dictionary (Evening Gazette, 16 Sept., 1874), for which I was freely bespattered with abuse from all American quarters. I showed up a multiplicity of absurd blunders and equally egregious omissions; and I wound up with these prophetic words: "We do not hesitate to pronounce Dr Williams the lexicographer, not for the future, but of the past." I at once began upon a dictionary of my own. Provoked by the American missionary Williams, Giles devoted himself to publishing a new dictionary that "was meant to bring the glory of having compiled the best Chinese–English dictionary back from America to England". Five years later, Giles published a 40-page brochure (1879) On some Translations and Mistranslations in Dr. Williams' Syllabic Dictionary that was reported extensively among English-language newspapers published in China. "I was badly mauled" in the Daily Press (Hong Kong), "received unstinted praise" in the North China Daily News, and was supported in the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal, which said "the Dictionary is in fault in most of the instances given." Giles sent a copy of his brochure to Williams, but received no reply. Since Williams reprinted his dictionary from stereotype plates, he was unable to make corrections, and added, in 1883, an Errata and Corrections on a fly-sheet at the end—without acknowledgement of Giles' corrections. Herbert Giles continued working on his Chinese–English dictionary for 15 years until 1889 when the Foreign Office granted his request to be stationed as Consul at Ningpo, where the workload was light and he could prepare the manuscript for press. The Shanghai publishers Kelly & Walsh printed the dictionary in 4 fascicules from 1891 to 1892. The first edition A Chinese–English Dictionary (1892), which Bernard Quaritch also published in London, had 2 royal quarto (250 by 320 mm.) volumes comprising a 46-page front matter (9-page Preface and 32-page Philological Essay) and the 1415-page dictionary, printed in triple columns, beginning with 60 pages of tables. The price was $35. For the subsequent two decades, Giles diligently worked "to correct mistakes, cut out duplicates and unnecessary matter, prepare revised Tables, and add a very large number of new phrases, taken from my reading in modern as well as in ancient literature". In 1903 Lord Lansdowne, then Foreign Secretary, asked Sir Ernest Satow, then Minister in Peking, by letter whether a new edition should be purchased for the British Peking legation and consulates, and whether publication should be funded from the Civil List Fund. After consulting with Giles, Satow supported the new publication in a letter dated May 29, 1903, stating "I understand from the author that the new edition is not a mere reproduction of the first. Mistakes have been corrected, further meanings have been added to many characters, frequent cross-references have been introduced, and no fewer than ten thousand new phrases have been distributed over the entries as they now stand, chiefly drawn from sources in which the Dictionary has been found to be deficient". The revised and enlarged second edition (1912) was likewise published by Kelly & Walsh and Bernard Quaritch in 7 fascicules printed from 1909 to 1912. It had 2 royal quarto volumes, with Part I comprising a 17-page preface (with extracts from the first edition) and 84 pages of tables; and Part II comprising the dictio.... Discover the Herbert Allen Giles Gu Hongming popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Herbert Allen Giles Gu Hongming books.