Cultural mediation through collaborative translation: James Legge and Wang Tao's joint rendering of Chinese classics in the nineteenth century

This study examines the translation partnership between Scottish missionary-sinologist James Legge (1815–1897) and Chinese scholar Wang Tao 王韬(1828–1897) that produced the monumental The Chinese Classics (1861–1872). Moving beyond traditional narratives that minimize Wang's contributions, this study analyzes the complex interactions and modalities of production in their decade-long collaboration. Drawing on Wang's personal library records in the Records from Henghua Study (Henghua Guan Zalu 蘅華館雜錄) and textual analysis of their translations, this research employs collaborative translation theory and postcolonial perspectives to reveal how their partnership navigated colonial power dynamics in nineteenth-century Hong Kong. Wang provided crucial scholarly apparatus, philological insights, and cultural context that fundamentally shaped Legge's understanding of Chinese classical texts. Their co-translation methodology – combining Western philological approaches with Chinese exegetical traditions – created a distinctive 'thick translation' that made Chinese classics accessible to Western readers while preserving interpretive complexity. This case study illuminates co-translation as cultural mediation in colonial contexts and demonstrates how cross-cultural knowledge production created spaces for intellectual agency within asymmetrical power relations.