Papers of James Legge

The collection consists of:  

• Papers relating to his role as Professor of Chinese, including lectures delivered, notebooks, translations, drafts of a Chinese-English phrase book and dictionary
• Papers of Legge and his family, consisting of a copy of a 20th-century journal kept by Hannah Mary Johnston before her marriage to Legge, autobiographical notes by Legge, and miscellaneous Legge family papers.

James Legge (1815-1897) was a missionary and sinologist. He was the first Professor of Chinese at Oxford University, 1876-97. Details are given in the Dictionary of National Biography.

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card (for admissions procedures see http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/specialcollections).

The papers were given to the Library in 1983.

Collection level description created by Emily Tarrant, Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts.

A full description is available in the Library.