Article: From Chinese wisdom to Irish wit: Zhuangzi and Oscar Wilde.

In February 1890, there appeared an extraordinary review. Under the title of 'A Chinese Sage', it hailed the 'first complete English translation' by Herbert A. Giles of the works of Zhuangzi (or 'Chuang Tsu' as it was spelled under the old Wade-Giles system later replaced by pinyin). (1) The author was Oscar Wilde. How Wilde came to review this book is not known. His friend Wemyss Reid presumably had asked Wilde to write such a piece for The Speaker, a journal he had just founded, leaving the choice of book to Wilde. But what could have led Wilde to choose to review the thoughts of a man who lived more than two thousand years ago in a very distant country--and one ...

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