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2 volumes, very large, thick 4to, pp. xviii, 84, 840; [2], 841-1711, [1]; later black cloth, gilt lettering direct on spine; title page in volume I neatly remargined, 2 old tape stains at the bottom, blue pencil lines on verso of title, several short, marginal tears neatly repaired, a couple of spots on the covers; in all, a good, clean, sturdy copy. The work took eighteen years to compile and another two years just to print it. "The nineteenth century ended on a high note in Chinese bilingual lexicography with the publication of Herbert A. Giles' A Chinese-English Dictionary. Giles (1845-1935) began his career in China in 1867 as an interpreter for the British Consular Service, returned to Ningbo as Counsul in 1891 and in 1897 was named Professor of Chinese at Cambridge University. Perhaps the most respected sinologist of his time, Giles wrote more than two dozen books on China. His crowning achievement was his Chinese-English Dictionary, first published in 1892 and revised in 1912. The dictionary is still useful today, especially to students of Imperial China and of Chinese literature, and formed the basis of Robert H. Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary (1931, 1943), perhaps the most popular Chinese-English dictionary in use until the 1970s" (Chien & Creamer, "A Brief History of Chinese Bilingual Lexicography," in vol. 40 of Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, Amsterdam, 1986). This edition not in Vancil; Zaunmuller, col. 40. Seller Inventory # 63276
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