James Legge's metrical Book of Poetry
Few non-Asian sinological scholars would not recognize the name of James Legge (A.D. 1815–97), partly because his voluminous translations of the Confucian canon still continue to be reprinted and used by Western sinological circles 120 years after their first publication. In China itself, Legge has recently received new attention with the republication of bilingual editions of The Four Books and The Book of Changes. Japanese readers have had rather more access to Legge's English translations of The Four Books, beginning with the early Meiji period and continuing into the twentieth century. Unfortunately, none of these Chinese or Japanese editions has included the extensive commentarial notes drawn from Chinese Confucian and early Western sinological sources which earned Legge his reputation as a world-class Chinese scholar in the nineteenth century.