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Preface

The first draft of this translation was made in 1941-42 when I was studying in Peking as a fellow of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. It was revised during my second stay in Peking in 1947. As it now goes to press after a further lapse of three years I am very conscious of the need for another revision. In fact if I were beginning the translation today I would proceed on rather different principles, especially in the annotation. The reader will find much that betrays the novice, as often in what is included as requiring a note as in the significant omissions. The text includes considerable interesting material for studies which I have not undertaken; in publishing it in this form it is with the hope that an English version of the Han shih wai chuan will attract the attention of those more competent than I to deal with its many problems, sociological, institutional and philosophical.

I wish to thank Professor Hsü Wei-yü of National Tsing Hua University and Professor Wang Li-ch`i of National Peking University for giving me the benefit of their wide knowledge of the Han shih wai chuan and related texts. Mr. Hsü made some useful suggestions about bibliography, which I have incorporated in my account of the history of the text. My indebtedness to Mr. Wang is acknowledged in the notes to the specific passages about which I consulted him. To Mr. Achilles Fang I owe a debt not so easily discharged. Mr. Fang read the entire manuscript, and nearly every page incorporates corrections which he has suggested.

The first two chapters of this translation were presented to the Department of Far Eastern Languages at Harvard University as a doctoral thesis. They were read by Professor J. R. Ware and were much improved by his criticism. I wish here to thank these teachers and friends who have been so generous with their time and knowledge. Without their help this translation would be much poorer than it is.

J.R.H., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950

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IATHPublished by The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, © Copyright 2003 by Anne Kinney and the University of Virginia