About the Translator

Sir Robert Kennaway Douglas (August 23, 1838 – May 20, 1913) was a British oriental scholar. He was born at Larkbeare House, Talaton, Devon on August 23, 1838, the fourth son of the Rev. Philip William Douglas. His father was appointed to the Chapel of ease at Escot, Ottery St. Mary, Devon, by Sir John Kennaway, Bart. His paternal grandfather was Dr. Philip Douglas, Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Douglas attended Blandford Grammar School. Douglas was in China with the consular service, from 1858 to 1865. He then became Professor of Chinese at King’s College, London. He was vice president of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the first Keeper of the British Museum’s new Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts when it was created in 1892. He was knighted in 1903 and died a decade later, on May 20, 1913.

Douglas wrote books on China, including:

Catalogue of Japanese Printed Books and Manuscripts in the Library of the British Museum, London: British Museum, 1898
Catalogue of the Printed Maps, Plans, and Charts in the British Museum, London: 1885
China, New York, P. F. Collier and Son, 1913 (The Story of Nations)
A Chinese Manual, Comprising a Condensed Grammar with Idiomatic Phrases and Dialogues, London: W. H. Allen, 1889; London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1904 (Text-books, Manuals, etc. in Oriental Languages)
Chinese Stories. With Illustrations, London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1893; reprinted in revised edition: Singapore: Graham Brash, 1990
Confucianism and Taouism, With a Map, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1879 (Non-Christian Religious Systems)
Europe and the Far East, 1506-1912 , Cambridge: University Press, 1913; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913 (Cambridge Historical Series, ed. by G.W. Prothero)
The Language and Literature of China (1875), Royal Institution lectures
The Life of Genghis Khan Translated from the Chinese. With an Introduction, London: Trübner & Co., 1877
Li Hungchang, London: Bliss, Sand & Foster, 1895 (Public Men of Today)
Society in China : Illustrated from Photographs, London: Ward, Lock, & Co., 1901
Supplementary Catalogue of Chinese Books and Manuscripts in the British Museum, London: Longmans & Co., 1903
During the 1890s Douglas collaborated on short stories with Elizabeth Thomasina Meade.
He wrote articles for the Dictionary of National Biography and for the Ninth Edition (1875-1889), Tenth Edition (1902-03) and Eleventh Edition (1911) of the Encyclopædia Britannica, the latter including a long article on “China” and articles on Chinese cities (“Peking”, “Nanking”, “Shanghai”, “Tonkin”) and an article on Genghis Khan.