Historical Chinese Letter Writing

Daniel Z. Kadar is a Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary. He is winner of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Young Scholar Award 2010.

• Preface; Part I. Family Letter Writing; 1.Family Letter Writing I: Letters of Zheng Banqiao; 2. Family Letter Writing II: Letters of Zeng Guofan; Part ll: 'Specialized' Epistolary Discourse; 3. 'Specialized' Epistolary Discourse I: Literary Letters of Jin Shengtan; 4. 'Specialized' Epistolary Discourse II: Scholarly Letters of Gu Yanwu; Part III: Non-family 'Social' Letter Writing; 5. Non-Family 'Social' Letters I: Letters of Xu Jiacun; 6. Non-Family 'Social' Letters II: Letters of Gong Weizhai Joint; Exercise for Chapters 5 and 6; Part IV: Political Letter Writing; 7. Political Letters: A Long Letter of Yuan Shikai Postscript: What next?; Appendix I: The Chinese Texts (printed in a punctuated form); Appendix II: Chronological List of Chinese Dynasties Glossary of Epistolary Expressions, Honorifics and Grammatical Words; Index.

"The author is an expert in the field and this is a particularly valuable contribution to a previously neglected, but important topic. There is a wealth of literary and historical detail here." - Professor Andy Kirkpatrick, Department of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong "Daniel Z Kadar's work is a landmark in Chinese epistolary scholarship: not only is it the first major collection of Chinese historical letters presented in the English language, but it is also a meticulously compiled textbook for anyone who has a vested interest in ancient Chinese civilization. The author's strong background in discourse pragmatics is thoroughly reflected in the design of the book, which will serve the reader well. This book is a welcome addition to classical Chinese materials for readers ranging from undergrads to accomplished scholars." - Hongyin Tao, Professor of Chinese Language and Linguistics & Applied Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, USA