QIAN ZHONGSHU

born Nov. 21, 1910, Wu-hsi, Kiangsu province, China died Dec. 19, 1998, Peking Wade-Giles romanization Ch'ien Chung-shu Chinese scholar and writer whose erudition and scholarly achievements are practically unrivaled in contemporary China. Qian attended missionary schools in Su-chou and Wu-hsi while receiving English and classical Chinese training under the tutelage of his father, Qian Jibo. A student of the Department of Western Languages and Literature, he graduated from Ch'ing-hua University in 1933. He taught at Kuang-hua University in Shanghai for two years before entering Exeter College, Oxford, where he received a B.A. in 1937. He briefly studied French literature at the Sorbonne before returning to China in 1939 to teach. He taught at several colleges and universities and worked as chief compiler of the Foreign Languages Division of the National Library in Nanking. He became a senior research fellow of the Institute of Literature of Peking University in 1953 and a member of the Academic Council of the Philosophy and Social Sciences Division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955. Qian's prose includes Written on the Verge of Life (1941), a small volume of essays; Jen, shou, kuei (1946; Men, Beasts, and Ghosts), a collection of short stories; and Wei-Ch'eng (1947; Fortress Besieged), a novel. Although it was widely translated, Qian's novel did not receive much recognition in China until the late 1970s. It became a best-seller in China in the 1980s and was made into a TV drama series in 1991. Qian's scholarly works were greeted with critical acclaim on the mainland as soon as they came off the press. Such was the case with the new edition of T'an i lu (1948; Reflections in Appreciation; revised and enlarged in 1983), Sung-shih Hsan-chu (1958; Selected and Annotated Poems of Song Dynasty), and the four-volume Kuan chui pien (1979; Limited Views, a partial translation). The latter work contains comparative studies in literature and culture in general, many of which involve several languages and a good number of ancient and modern authors and their creative or scholarly works. In 1986 a volume of revisions and addenda was included in volume 4 of the work. Qian's other writings include Chiu-wen ssu-p'ien (1979; Four Early Articles) and Ch'i-chui chi (1984), a collection of scholarly articles.