Stanislas Julien - Les deux jeunes filles lettrées [roman chinois] - 1860

Original French edition of this Chinese novel translated by the sinologist Stanislas Julien (1799-1873).

Chinese literature in vulgar language is one of Julien's main concerns. He primarily focuses on novels, short stories, and theater, continuing the work of Rémusat. He first translates 'The History of the Chalk Circle' (1832), then 'White and Blue or the Two Fairy Snakes' (1834), and 'The Orphan of China' (1834), a play previously translated by P. Prémare and adapted by Voltaire. After a break, Julien returns to literature with a novel, 'The Two Young Literate Girls' (1860), and a play, 'The History of the Western Pavilion' (1872-1880).

In translating the novel of the Two Learned Young Girls, I set myself a dual purpose, namely: to make known, for the first time in Europe, a work that offers a faithful, lively, and often sharp depiction of the tastes and literary habits of the Chinese, and to provide, for students who wish to read the work in the original language, an understanding of the most refined, most brilliant, and also the most difficult modern style, which they would find impossible to fully comprehend using the dictionaries and philological works published up to this day.

Complete in two volumes. Half-cloth binding with bradel, title pieces glued to the spines. Covers preserved (without spine).

Spine: slightly worn, light rubbing on the caps, pierced corners (solid volumes). Interior clean and fresh. A fine specimen.

Stanislas Julien
The two educated young girls
Paris, Didier and Co., 1860
2 volumes in-8 (19 x 12 cm); 360 pages, 1 frontispiece + 329 pages, 1 frontispiece.