A heavily annotated copy of the work of one of our greatest sinologists
WALEY, Arthur. 170 Chinese Poems Constable & Co. 1923
8vo. Original cloth lettered in red with front panel of dustjacket remaining; pp. xii + 168; very good. Provenance: Arthur Waley's own copy, annotated throughout with his extensive manuscript revisions in both English and Chinese. With receipt from art gallery made out to A.D. Waley Esq.
Second edition, third impression. This copy of Waley's most important book is, in essence, a new work, as Waley's working practice was to change the text of his published work in printed copies of his books. This copy is a working manuscript, with revisions on 133 pages, totalling 1200 English words and 390 Chinese characters. The poems are extensively revised with transcriptions of the Chinese text as well as the new translation.
All of the revisions were included in the 1946 text, with a few extra changes making this copy the only survivor of the text in this intermediate state. 170 Chinese Poems is considered to be the finest work of the poet and sinologist described by Sacheverell Sitwell as "the greatest scholar and the person with most understanding of all human arts", and was included in 100 key books described in Cyril Connolly's The Modern Movement.
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