Books on Chinese

Chinese Characters -- A Genealogy and Dictionary (Rick Harbaugh, ISBN 978-0966075007) is even cheaper, but also a lot smaller, than the Far East dictionary. It has fewer characters, fewer compounds, and fewer definitions for each character (usually leaving out literary meanings). For these reasons I rarely use it, except when I'm away from home and the Far East dictionary would be too heavy to carry around. Its indexes are good: apart from his own system (which I never really tried, but others seem to like) there is a radical + stroke count index, a stroke count index, a zhuyin index for characters, a pinyin index for compounds, and an English index (which the Far East dictionary lacks). Character entries contain cross-references to compounds which contain the character in another position than the first.

Grammata Serica Recensa (Bernhard Karlgren, The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm 1972) is Karlgren's classical dictionary of Old and Middle Chinese, first published in 1957. A character entry typically has a handful of different graphical forms (taken from a large number of oracle bone and bronze inscriptions), pronunciations in Mandarin, reconstructed Middle Chinese and reconstructed Old Chinese. There is also a short definition in English, references to Karlgren's Glosses (see below), and notes if a certain definition is due to a phonetic loan.

Glosses on the Book of Documents (Bernhard Karlgren, The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm 1970) is a very detailed, almost word-by-word, analysis of the Shujing. Meant to complement Karlgren's translation of it. This is not a general dictionary, of course, but certainly more useful than one when trying to read the obscure language of the Shujing.

Far East Chinese-English Dictionary (Liang Shih-Chiu, ISBN 978-9576122309) is a really good investment. It's cheap, about as comprehensive as Chinese-English dictionaries get (7331 characters, 120,000 compounds), uses traditional characters, and contains many definitions from Literary Chinese (although its stated goal is coverage of the current language). The binding and the printing is good. There's a radical + stroke count index and a stroke count + radical index, a table of characters with difficult radicals (stroke count order), a pinyin index, Gwoyeu Romatzyh index and a zhuyin index, and conversion tables between these systems. Character pronounciations are given in all three systems, but compound pronounciations are zhuyin only.

Chinese Characters (L. Wieger, ISBN 978-0486213217) is a character dictionary of about 10,000 characters (making it the most comprehensive I have) as well as a more thourough discussion of selected characters. It was published in 1927, the printing is rather bad, and Wade-Giles is used exclusively. Character entries in the comprehensive dictionary are rather brief, and I rarely use it. The "etymological lessons" of about 2,300 characters are interesting, with large characters in modern and seal script forms. These seem to be mostly based on the Shuowen (which is very frequently quoted), and are not to be taken as the absolute truth about the history of Chinese writing. Dover's reprint is rather cheap, so I'd say it's well worth its price.

Grammar/linguistics

Early Archaic Chinese (W. A. C. H. Dobson) is a study of the language of the early Zhou, based on bronze inscriptions and some of the authentic Shujing (Book of Documents) chapters -- all of which are included in full with translations and comments.

Textbooks

Chinese Through Poetry (Archie Barnes, ISBN 978-1904623519) focuses on Tang poetry, but also covers the basics of writing Chinese (which is usually not included in textbooks on classical or literary Chinese), grammar, and the construction and development of Chinese writing. Chinese poetry is quite different from prose, and while I can't tell if the author is correct in arguing that it makes a better introduction to Chinese than prose readings (as is the standard), it certainly makes a good complement.

An Introduction to Literary Chinese (Michael A. Fuller, ISBN 978-0674017269) is smaller and more compact than Rouzer's A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese, but covers about the same amount and types of texts. Notes on the texts are brief, vocabulary lists are complete but also brief and mention only the meaning encountered in the particular text (as opposed to Rouzer's book, where each vocabulary entry is more dictionary-like). Fuller also provides some other interesting material, such as traditional Chinese commentaries (and a guide on reading them) and a summary of grammar words. I would recommend this as a complement to some other, more elementary textbook (such as Rouzer's).

A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese (Paul Rouzer, ISBN 978-0674022706) was my first book on the subject, which I bought just as it was being published. It contains 40 lessons, each containing a text (selected from various sources, mostly Warring States and Han) where a text is analyzed and a complete glossary presented. A total of 1,374 characters are presented in detail (with a radical + stroke count index, a pinyin index, and a Korean index), so this is useful as a small dictionary of the most common characters and compounds. There's also a summary of the most important grammar words, which makes a useful reference. Furthermore, the author only assumes knowledge of English. If you only want to get one book on Literary Chinese, I would recommend this one.

Classical Chinese: A Basic Reader (Naiying Yuan, Haitao Tang, James Geiss, ISBN 0-691-11831-0) consists of three volumes. The first contains 40 short texts, each given with the original classical text (in chinese characters, pinyin and Gwoyeu Romatzyh), a Mandarin translation (in chinese characters and pinyin) and an English translation. The second volume contains glossaries for all the chapters, with each word and character explained in Mandarin and English. The third, and thickest, volume contains a detailed grammatical analysis of the texts, also given in Mandarin as well as English.

Classics/translations

The Guodian Laozi -- Proceedings of the International Conference, Dartmouth College, May 1998 (Sarah Allan and Crispin Williams (ed), ISBN 1-55729-069-5) contains an edition in standardized characters (with alternative readings suggested by participants of the conference) of the Laozi (老子) chapters and the previously unknown text Tai Yi Sheng Shui (太一生水) found written on bamboo slips in a Chu (楚) tomb dated to circa 300 BC. These are discussed in detail in a number of papers making up the bulk of this book, along with some brief discussions of other texts also found in the tomb. While some of the material is quite technical, and does not in general provide translations for these ancient works, I find the book as a whole an interesting account of these two texts, from discovery (as a pile of mud with illegible bamboo slips) to interpretation and fitting them into a historical and philosophical context.

Anthology of Chinese Literature -- Volume I, From Early Times to The Fourteenth Century (Cyril Birch (ed), ISBN 978-0802150387) contains translations of poetry, prose fiction and history texts until the Yuan dynasty. A notable exception is the lack of philosophy writings, apart from a short excerpt of the Zhuangzi. The translations are good and readable, and the selection is about as good as you can expect when over two thousand years of literature are compressed into a 500-page volume. Obviously much more is left out than included, but I like opening this book during idle moments to read a chapter or two.

Historical Records (Raymond Dawson, ISBN 0-19-283115-1) is a translation of the parts of Shiji dealing with the Qin dynasty. It is easy to read, has quite a few footnotes (unnumbered, so somewhat hard to locate) and a preface on Sima Qian and his work.

Classical Chinese -- Present-day Chinese and English Renditions (Feng Shujian, ISBN 7-80052-149-4) is a selection of texts in literary Chinese from different periods, with Mandarin and English translations and brief Chinese glosses to some advanced English words. Although the classical texts are given in simplified characters, I like the overall structure, with a large number of short and interesting stories.

On the Authenticity and Nature of the Tso Chuan (Bernhard Karlgren) discusses the Zuo Zhuan in some detail. Karlgren argues for its authenticity in the sense of being a pre-Qin work, likely from the early Warring States period, rejecting the theory that it is a Han dynasty forgery. There is also a detailed analysis of the language used in the Zuo Zhuan, compared to other important classical texts (the Analects, Mencius, Guoyu, Zhuangzi, Shijing and Shujing). Thus it is not merely a study of the Zuo Zhuan, but also of the development of early Chinese grammar.

The Book of Odes -- Kuo Feng and Siao Ya (Bernhard Karlgren) is a translation of the first parts of the Shijing, with minimal notes. More detailed information is available in Karlgren's Glosses on the Book of Odes series (also reprinted in book form).

The Chinese Classics, Volume I: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean (James Legge, ISBN 978-0486227467) is Dover's reprint of the 1893 second edition. I like this series a lot. First comes a long introduction of the texts and various related topics, written during the Qing dynasty when the Confucian traditions were still going strong. Then comes the main texts, with large printed Chinese characters, punctuation, and tone marks. Below this is the English translation, and very detailed notes analyzing both language and context. Finally, a glossary of all characters is provided (sorted by radical + stroke count). I strongly recommend this series, both because the books themselves are important to understand Chinese history and culture, and because they make excellent Classical Chinese readers. There are several modern reprints, by Dover for the first two volumes (unfortunately number two, The Mencius, is out of print), and nice hardcover editions by SMC Publishing for the last three.

The True Story of Ah Q (Lu Xun, ISBN 962-996-044-3) is a bilingual version of Lu Xun's famous story, with the English translation and the original Chinese text (with traditional characters) on opposite sides. As most of Lu Xun's stories, Ah Q is amusing and sad, and would be worth reading even if one disregards its great cultural significance.

Taoteching (Red Pine/Bill Porter, ISBN 978-1562790851) is one of several hundred(!) translations of this classic. It includes the Chinese text (as stitched together by the translator, from various editions including those found at Mawangdui) along with the English translation and quotations from various commentaries, and the author's brief translation notes. From a learner's point of view this is perhaps not as good as Legge's translation of the Confucian classics mentioned above, as the comments tend to be more of a philosophical nature. That said, it still makes a pretty interesting exercise, with a language that is relatively easy to read, but hard to understand. In addition to this, like Legge's book, it is a nice introduction to a major philosophical/religious movement of China.

Early Chinese Literature (Burton Watson) discusses Chinese literature (in the widest sense, including the three categories in which the books is divided: history, philosophy and poetry) from the Shujing to aroud 100 CE. This is a very interesting and amusing book which is also easy to read. Watson, as one of the foremost translators of classical Chinese works, provides plenty of translated excerpts from the texts being discussed.

The Art of War, The Book of Lord Shang (Robert Wilkinson, ISBN 978-1-85326-779-6) contains translations of the Art of War (translator Yuan Shibing) and The Book of Lord Shang (translator J. J. L. Duyvendak), as well as a commentary on the Art of War by the PLA general Tao Hanzhang. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the volume, with anecdotes from classical history as well as the Chinese civil war of the 1930s and 40s.

Selected Chinese Texts in the Classical and Colloquial Styles (Lien-Sheng Yang (ed), ISBN 0674797108). To be done.

史记故事 (Stories from the Records of the Historian, ISBN 7-80052-064-1) is a Mandarin reader, using translations from the Shiji. For some more obscure words glosses in English and French are available, but I discovered this is not for the absolute beginner.

History/culture

A History of Chinese Civilization (Jacques Gernet, second edition, English translation, ISBN 978-0-521-49781-7) attempts to describe the history of China from the prehistoric cultures to the present, with most of the material concerning imperial China. Naturally, such a book can not go very deep, but taken as a "brief" summary of Chinese history I think it is worth reading.

Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (David N. Keightley, University of California Press, 1985) is an introduction and research guide to Shang dynasty oracle bones, with a large amount of footnotes and citations of other works. Not only are the actual inscriptions discussed, but also the historical context, the methods of divination, the materials used, and so on. Some parts are rather technical, but overall I found the book an interesting introduction.

Kinakunskap (Björn Kjellgren, ISBN 91-44-01445-7) is a gentle introduction to China, past and present, written by my Mandarin teacher (in Swedish). This is quite an ambitious task for a book of less than 300 pages, still I think it makes a good introduction for the beginner.