2 replies on “Translations of Chinese Book Names”

  1. Dear Ben Hammer,

    Barring the fortuitous likelihood of a group of translators being sentenced to translate the 四库大辞典, there is no good single source for ancient Chinese book names.

    However, there are a few references that might ease your toil. I interpret your meaning ‘ancient Chinese books’ quite broadly, that is, anything before 1911, and spilling across all the disciplinary classifications.

    1. Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History, A New Manual 2012. There is a 4th edition, 2015.(not seen)

    2. Han Yu-Shan, Elements of Chinese Historiography, 1955.

    3. Kung-chuan Hsiao, A History of Chinese Political Thought, Vol. 1, Translated by Frederick Mote 1979.

    4. Kristofer Schipper and F. Verellen, The Taoist Canon 3 volumes 2004-2005. (I forget if they translate titles.)

    5. Louis Komjathy, Boston University, has a short bibliography on Taoism in translation; he does give English renderings of titles. (available online)

    6. Fabrizio Pregadio, Routledge Encyclopedia of Taoism. 2 vols. 2008

    7. Rodney L. Taylor, Illustrated Encyclopedia of Confucianism, 2 vols. 2005.

    8. Antonio S. Cua, Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, 2003.

    9. Joseph Needham, et.all 1956- Science and Civilisation in China. Bibliography A, especially in Volumes 1 & 2 are good for philosophy, but they are only about 10-12 pages per volume.

    10. Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 2 vols. translated by D. Bodde

    11. Wilt Idema and Lloyd Haft, A Guide to Chinese Literature, 1997 paperback; though the hardcover edition has more ample bibliographies.

    12. Carsun Chang, The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought 2 volumes, 1957.

    13. Arthur Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, 1944.

    15. Victor H. Mair, ed. Columbia History of Chinese Literature, 2001.

    16. David Knechtges, Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, 2 volumes, 2010.

    17. Luo Yuming, A Concise History of Chinese Literature, 2 vols. Brill, 2011.

    18. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, 2 volumes, 1986, 1998.

    19. David Knechtges and Taiping Chang, Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, Brill 2014. This work is published in three parts, only two have so far appeared.

    20. Michael Loewe, Early Chinese Texts, 1993.

    21. Heming Yong and Jing Peng, Chinese Lexicography, 2008. Good for Chinese dictionary titles.

    21. For Chinese philosophy proper, there is 郭尚兴: 汉英中国哲学辞典, 2002, 869 pages, 河南大学出版社. 3135 entries. It has an long English index that includes book titles, though compared to other monolingual dictionaries of Chinese philosophy, this one is missing about 2000 or so entries.

    Unfortunately, I cannot recommend anything on Buddhist books at the moment.

    In any event, this list was just what came to mind.

    I hope you find this useful.

    Best regards,

    Joel Baranowski

    Xi’an Jiaotong University
    Department of Philosophy

  2. Joel, this is absolutely fantastic. Thank you.
    Ben Hammer
    Shandong University,
    Advanced Institute for Confucian Studies

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