author
Joseph Edkins
1823–1905
A British missionary-scholar who spent most of his life in China, he wrote widely on Chinese language, religion, and culture. His work helped introduce many English-language readers to Chinese Buddhism and other traditions in the nineteenth century.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Gloucestershire in 1823, Joseph Edkins became a Protestant minister and went to China with the London Missionary Society. He remained there for decades, including many years in Beijing, building a life that combined missionary work with serious study of Chinese society and belief.
Edkins became known as a linguist, translator, and prolific writer. He published books on the Chinese language and on Chinese religions, especially Buddhism, and he was part of the wider nineteenth-century effort to explain China to Western readers.
He died in Shanghai in 1905 after about fifty-seven years in China. Today he is remembered less for a single famous title than for the sheer range of his work and for the way he moved between religion, language study, and cultural observation.