Yen Fu (8 January 1854-27 October 1921), naval officer who became the foremost translator-commentator of his day. Through his translations, the works of such Western thinkers as Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, and Adam Smith were introduced to China. The only son of a practitioner of Chinese medicine. Yen Fu was born in […]

Wang Hsien-ch'ien (6 August 1842-8 January 1918), scholar, educator, and government official. He was best known for his monumental compilations, including the Han-shu pu-chu [supplementary notes to the Han-shu] and the Hou-Han-shu pu-chu. The third son in an impoverished gentry family, Wang Hsien-ch'ien was born in Changsha, Hunan. He became a sheng-yüan in 1857 and […]

Ch'en San-li 陳三立 Ch'en San-li (1852 - 15 September 1937) helped to develop reform and modernization programs in Hunan while his father, Ch'en Pao-chen, was governor (1895-98). After the failure of the Hundred Days Reform of 1898, he was banished from government service. He then became a noted poet and essayist. The Ch'en San-li branch […]