Garden of Eloquence / Shuoyuan

"[M]asterful and meticulously annotated rendering of Shuoyuan. Garden of Eloquence is an excellent and beneficial contribution to the growing number of translations of ancient Chinese literature."—IIAS Newsletter

"[S]uperbly crafted and aptly annotated. A monumental translation, which is much recommended to scholars of Confucianism and premodern East Asian religions."—Religious Studies Review

"Perhaps more than any other scholar of early China, Liu Xiang was responsible for determining the content and configuration of official Chinese knowledge. Henry's translation makes audible in English a hitherto unheard but important voice."—Sarah Queen, Connecticut College

"This definitive translation of a very important classical Chinese text with its useful scholarly apparatus will be of great value to the fields of Chinese history and literary studies."—J. Michael Farmer, University of Texas at Dallas

"The Shuoyuan is one of the most important texts that have come down to us from the Han dynasty. Eric Henry's complete and profusely annotated translation includes the establishment of a carefully collated critical text based on the best modern critical editions published in China. Professor Henry's work, based on many years of meticulous research, makes a very substantial contribution to the study of ancient Chinese intellectual history."—Christoph Harbsmeier, professor emeritus, University of Oslo

"With his usual wit and style, Eric Henry brings to life Liu Xiang's Shuoyuan. This engaging compendium of anecdotes and aphorisms addresses the various means to achieve an enlightened government. But it is also an important source on other topics, such as music, morals, yin-yang theory and rhetoric. The text also embodies the Han fondness for mining historical anecdotes for useful models of administering the state. In short, the Shuoyuan is essential reading for understanding the political and administrative concerns of the late Western Han dynasty."—Anne Behnke Kinney, University of Virginia