Chinese books, manuscripts and translation
Giles was born in Surrey in 1875 and studied at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating in 1899. He joined the British Museum in 1900 and ultimately headed its Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts from 1936 to 1940. His work also included service as secretary and treasurer of the China Society.
In the introduction to his Dunhuang catalogue, Giles recalls receiving responsibility for the Chinese manuscripts in 1919. Sorting, identifying and describing that large collection required sustained attention to individual texts and their physical evidence. Alongside this work he translated Chinese classics for wider audiences, including The Art of War in 1910 and volumes for the Wisdom of the East series. He died in 1958.
The Analects rearranged around questions
The retained John Murray Sayings of Confucius is dated 1920. Its title promises a translation of the greater part of the Analects, with introduction and notes. Giles selects and groups material under subjects including government, individual virtue and Confucius himself. The result offers a thematic route rather than the complete source in its original sequence.
A comparison between the ruler and a fixed star presents political order through example. Another conversation tests what a state can sacrifice, moving through military strength and food towards the necessity of public confidence. Successive questions shape the answer; the passage has a different force from an isolated maxim. Giles’s arrangement brings such exchanges together while his English vocabulary and notes mediate the historical relationships behind them.
