James Legge

James Legge (1815–1897) was a Scottish Congregationalist missionary and sinologist whose English translations introduced major Chinese classics to Western scholarship.

Chinese classics: Foundational texts of Chinese philosophy, history, literature, and ritual, traditionally studied as a canon. These were the central works Legge translated and interpreted for English-language readers.
Oxford University Press: A university press founded in Oxford that publishes scholarly and educational works. Oxford University Press issued Legge’s translations in the influential Sacred Books of the East series.
Max Müller: A German-born philologist and scholar of comparative religion who edited the Sacred Books of the East series. Müller invited Legge to contribute Chinese translations to the series he edited.
Arthur Waley: A British sinologist and translator known for English versions of Chinese and Japanese literature. Waley’s twentieth-century translations differ in style and priorities from Legge’s Victorian scholarship.
Classical Chinese: The written language used in much of premodern Chinese literature and scholarship. Legge’s translations began with sustained study of the language in which the classics were composed.
Sacred Books of the East: A multivolume English-language series of translations of Asian religious and philosophical texts, edited by Max Müller. Legge contributed translations of Chinese texts to this comparative-religion collection.
Walter Henry Medhurst: A British Protestant missionary and linguist who worked in China and helped produce early English-Chinese lexicons. Medhurst’s missionary and linguistic work preceded Legge’s efforts to translate Chinese religious texts.
Ezra Pound: An American modernist poet whose adaptations of Chinese poetry drew partly on Ernest Fenollosa’s notes. Pound’s poetic remaking of Chinese texts contrasts with Legge’s scholarly translation program.
Confucianism: A Chinese ethical and philosophical tradition centered on social relationships, moral cultivation, and exemplary conduct. Legge translated the Confucian canon and treated its teachings as serious philosophical works.
Confucianism in the United States: The reception, study, and practice of Confucian traditions in the United States. Legge’s English translations became part of the textual basis for American academic engagement with Confucianism.

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