Sun Tzu on the Art of War. by SUN TZU; GILES, Lionel (trans.) - 1910: The Oldest Military Treatise in the World. Translated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes. [Together with] MACHELL-COX, Edward (trans.). The Principles of War by Sun Tzu. Colombo: A Welfare Publication, Royal Air Force, Ceylon, 1943.

London: Luzac & Co., Printed by E. J. Brill, Leyden, , 1910. The first full translation of Sun Tzu from source - "a model study, scholarly but at the same time alive" Tall octavo (247 x 160 mm). Contemporary dark green pebble-grain cloth, title gilt to spine, original printed card wraps bound in front and back: second-named; duodecimo, (137 x 107 mm) wire-stitched in the original lavender card wraps, printed in dark blue and vermilion. A little rubbed, some crumpling and splitting at head and tail of spine, endpapers and wraps foxed and browned, text block lightly toned, this copy from the library of Lady Alda Hoare with ownership inscription dated at Stourhead, March 1922, and with her extensive blue pencil markings, and neatly inked marginal commentary drawing on Foch, Principes de la Guerre, and Napoleon as reported by Las Cases and Gourgaud. The Machell-Cox neatly mounted on the rear pastedown, lightly browned throughout, but entirely sound; overall very good. First edition of the first full translation of Sun Tzu directly from the Chinese original. At the time of his translation, Giles was assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum, widely considered one of the leading sinologues of his day, and this one of his finest works. Inevitably well represented institutionally, it is genuinely scarce on the market, and this copy with a particularly unusual and evocative provenance. There had been two previous attempts at putting Sun Tzu into a modern European language: the French Jesuit Jean Joseph-Marie Amiot's version of 1782, and British army "language officer" Lt.-Col. Everard Ferguson Calthrop's English translation of 1905 (rev. 1908). Père Amiot (1718-1793) made his "'free' and discursive" translation from a Manchu paraphrase of the eighteenth century, while Calthrop (1876-1915) "drew from a later Japanese translation" (Dobson), his effort being inspired by an exercise set by his Japanese teacher. Recent scholarship suggests that both do offer valuable insights into the contemporary contextualization of Chinese culture, so perhaps Giles was unnecessarily harsh in his dismissals - Amiot "little more than an imposture", Calthrop's knowledge of Chinese "far too scanty to fit him to grapple with the manifold difficulties" of the text - John Minford suggesting that he was uncharacteristically "emulating his notoriously irascible and often petulant father" Herbert (1845–1935), Cambridge professor of Chinese, and co-creator of the Wade-Giles system of transliteration. However, there is no question that his was the first genuine attempt at a full translation, undertaken by a scholar equipped for the difficulties of the work, the result being a model of fluency and interpretative accuracy. In his introduction to the 2008 re-issue of Giles's text, Minford (whose own translation of Sun Tzu for Penguin Classics was published in 2003) is strong in his praise; "It is quite remarkable how deeply and thoroughly Giles enters into the (often intractable) text, recognising the quality of the Chinese writing (and even identifying the occasional rhyming jingle)... The care with which Lionel reads, translates and sometimes synthesises the often rambling and contradictory commentaries, is remarkable". It was not until the publication in 1963 of Samuel B. Griffith's translation that Giles met any sort of serious challenge. While the early 21st century reader may find Griffith's diction easier on the ear than that of his predecessor, and certainly Griffiths's lengthy military service, particularly in Asia, lends his work the concreteness of experience, Giles's scholarly approach remains peerless, it is "a model study, scholarly but at the same time alive both to enduring humanistic concerns and to concrete present-day issues... there exists no better representation of the old tradition of Sinology at its most typical and at its best". Calthrop's work was carried out in the shadow of the Russo-Japanese War, perhaps the first truly modern war, Giles's response was made in the context of the naval arms race, and gathering clouds in Europe, and is dedicated to the translator's brother Capt. Valentine Giles, R.E. (1977-1945), "in the hope that a work 2400 years old may yet contain lessons worth consideration by the soldier of to-day". The present copy's provenance places it in a very specific context relating to World War I. The front wrap bears the ownership inscription of Lady Alda Hoare, Stourhead, dated March 31st 1922, and her notes on the first and last leaves of text show that she read it between the morning of the 31st and the evening of the following day, making copious marks to the text, and adding extensive, telling notes from a variety of sources. Lady Alda Hoare, née Weston, (1861-1947) married Sir Henry Hoare in 1887, and in 1894 when he inherited Stourhead from a cousin, the couple dedicated themselves to the restoration of the 1725 Palladian villa to its former glory. On the outbreak of WWI, despite persistent ill health their only son, also Henry, joined the Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry and shipped out as part of the 6th Mounted Brigade for the campaign in Egypt in April 1915. Two years later he was fatally wounded in the Charge of El Mughair, part of Allenby's drive to take Jerusalem, and died of his wounds in Alexandria. Lady Hoare was already closely involved in the running of the Red Cross Hospital at nearby Mere, taking a personal interest in the well-being of the wounded, and often inviting convalescent soldiers to visit Stourhead at the weekends (see Wiltshire at war website), but this personal loss must have intensified and personalised her concern with the causes and conduct of war. Her notes in the present text represent a painstaking campaign of reading and interpretation, encompassing the theoretical and practical aspects of conflict in general, and occasionally drawing lessons for the war just passed. This was an engagement that endured; there are two letters dated in 1945 tipped in to the prefatory material addressed to Cousin Henry and Cousin Alda from Maj. Henry M. Burton which relate to how he obtained the enclosed copy of the later translation - itself an uncommon piece - which make it clear that this was very much Alda's interest rather than her husband's. At some point Alda has even added a neat annotation to the front free endpaper relating to the weight of equipment carried by an infantryman in the war, giving the source as "E. Epton, Secretary, Stourhead, Infantry & M[achine] G[un] C[orps] 1914-1918"; Ewart Epton was private secretary to Sir Henry and had served with the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry and MCG achieving the rank of sergeant. A fascinating copy of a work that is increasingly hard to come by. Hamish Ion, "Something new under the Sun: E.F. Calthrop and the art of war", Japan Forum, 2:1, 1990; Sebastian Dobson "E. F. Calthrop", Cortazzi (ed.) Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, Vol. VIII ; John Minford, "Lionel Giles: Sinology, Old and New", China Heritage Quarterly, 13, March 2008.