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The Great Commentary on the Documents Classic / Shangshu dazhuan尚書大傳

By Fan Lin, Griet Vankeerberghen

An early commentary on one of the Chinese Five Classics

The Documents classic (Shangshu) was central to the political life of imperial China. This owed much to the lively commentarial activity surrounding the text in the...

A Thorough Exploration in Historiography / Shitong

By Liu Zhiji. Translated and Introduced by Victor Cunrui Xiong

The definitive translation of a masterpiece in ancient Chinese historiography

In the early eighth century, frustrated with the authorities but still hoping to gain immortality through his future oeuvre, the Tang court historian Liu Zhiji set...

Garden of Eloquence / Shuoyuan說苑

By Liu Xiang. Translated and Introduced by Eric Henry

Winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work, sponsored by the Modern Language Association

An anthology of literary gems compiled in early China, newly translated and annotated

In 17 BCE...

Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan左傳

Commentary on the "Spring and Autumn Annals"

By Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, David Schaberg

Winner of the Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation (China and Inner Asia), sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies

Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan; sometimes called The Zuo Commentary) is China’s first great work of...

The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy

By Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan, and Hans van Ess

Sima Qian (first century BCE), the author of Record of the Historian (Shiji), is China’s earliest and best-known historian, and his “Letter to Ren An” is the most famous letter in Chinese history. In the...

Exemplary Figures / Fayan法言

By Yang Xiong. Translated by Michael Nylan. Introduction by Michael Nylan

Winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature, sponsored by the Modern Language Association

Exemplary Figures (sometimes translated as Model Sayings) is an unabridged, annotated translation of...

Chang'an 26 BCE

An Augustan Age in China

By Michael Nylan, Griet Vankeerberghen

During the last two centuries BCE, the Western Han capital of Chang'an, near today's Xi'an in northwest China, outshone Augustan Rome in several ways while administering comparable numbers of imperial subjects and equally vast territories....