Christ or Confucius, Which? is just one of the book titles now on display in New College Library, in honour of the conference being held on James Legge and Scottish Missions to China at New College on 11-13 June 2015.
The authors of these works were contemporaries of James Legge (1815-1897), who was a missionary and scholar of Chinese. He became Principal of the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca established in 1818 by the pioneering protestant missionary Robert Morrison (1782–1834). In 1842 he was put in charge of the London Missionary Society’s mission house in Hong Kong where he spent a third of his life. He became an accomplished translator of Chinese Classical texts. Returning home to Scotland in 1873, he then took up the newly endowed chair of Chinese at Oxford University. Many editions of his works are held in the University of Edinburgh Library, with several at New College Library.
Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity