Second edition of a handbook that was essential for English speaking persons who wished to obtain competence in Mandarin Chinese with the required knowledge of vocabulary and functional grammar and an awareness of the main types of verbal interaction, first published in 1857. It is an extensive grammar divided into three main parts, each in numerous chapters: "On sound" (pronunciation, tonal system, etc., along with some comments on the written language), "The parts of speech" and "Syntax", plus appendices on recent native Chinese research on Chinese philology, Mandarin Chinese literature and the southern Mandarin dialect. Mandarin is by far the most widely spoken Chinese language group, followed by Wu (Cantonese) and Yue (Shanghai dialect). These spoken languages are mutually unintelligible, though they use the same written characters.
The author Joseph Edkins was a prominent English Sinologue who lived in China for 57 years and published fourteen books on the language and culture of the country, including a catalogue of the Chinese collection of the Bodleian Library (1876). His first publication, A grammar of colloquial Chinese (1853) covered the Shanghai dialect, making the present Mandarin Grammar his second Chinese grammar. It was his only book to see a second edition. He was forward thinking with the idea that the European and Asian languages have common roots, and thus shared ancestors.
With the bookplate of John Lawson on paste-down. In very good condition. Foley, 3.2.2.2; WorldCat 457527659; Routledge, 22.4.