The Chinese Classics: Prolegomena

James Legge (1815-1897) was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and then Kings College, Aberdeen. He was a noted Scottish sinologist, a Scottish Congregationalist, representative of the London Missionary Society in Malacca and Hong Kong (1840-1873), and first professor of Chinese at Oxford University (1876-1897). In 1876 he assumed the new Chair of Chinese Language and Literature at Oxford, where he attracted few students to his lectures but worked hard for some 20 years over his translations of the Chinese classics. Legge was given an honorary MA, University of Oxford, and LLD, University of Edinburgh, 1884. In association with Max Mller he prepared the monumental Sacred Books of the East series, published in 50 volumes between 1879 and 1891. He wrote many books on Chinese literature and religion.