The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Lionel Giles Translator)

Jul 6, 2026

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Lionel Giles’s 1910 English translation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is presented as a Project Gutenberg eBook. The front matter includes publication and bibliographic details, a note pointing to a version without Giles’s commentary, and framing text that describes the translation’s purpose and scholarly context. A preface outlines the European discovery of the work, critiques earlier translations, and explains how Giles’s notes and later digitization choices affected readability and fidelity.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages90

Reading Time2 h 19 min

Sun Tzu on the Art of War

Project Gutenberg edition information and licensing

Preface: history of translations and Giles’s approach

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu 1 Chapter V. The Art of War, by Sun Tzu The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art of War, by Sun Tzu This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online [at www.gutenberg.org](at www.gutenberg.org) [Title: The Art of War](Title: The Art of War) Author: Sun Tzu Translator: Lionel Giles Release Date: May 1994 [eBook \#132][Most recently updated December 28, 2005] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART OF WAR *** Note: Please see Project Gutenberg's eBook \#17405 for a version of this eBook without the Giles commentary (that is, with only the Sun Tzu text) . SUN TZU ON THE ART OF WAR THE OLDEST MILITARY TREATISE IN THE WORLD The Art of War, by Sun Tzu 2 Translated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes BY LIONEL GILES, M.A. Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum First Published in 1910 To my brother Captain Valentine Giles, R.G. in the hope that a work 2400 years old may yet contain lessons worth consideration by the soldier of today this translation is affectionately dedicated. Preface to the Project Gutenburg Etext-------------------------------------- When Lionel Giles began his translation of Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR, the work was virtually unknown in Europe. Its introduction to Europe began in 1782 when a French Jesuit Father living in China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy of it, and translated it into French. It was not a good translation because, according to Dr. Giles, "[I]t contains a great deal that Sun Tzu did not write, and very little indeed of what he did. " The first translation into English was published in 1905 in Tokyo by Capt. E. F. Calthrop, R.F.A. However, this translation is, in the words of Dr. Giles, "excessively bad. " He goes further in this criticism: "It is not merely a question of downright blunders, from which none can hope to be wholly exempt. Omissions were frequent; hard passages were willfully distorted or slurred over. Such offenses are less pardonable. They would not be tolerated in any edition of a Latin or Greek classic, and a similar standard of honesty ought to be insisted upon in translations from Chinese. " In 1908 a new edition of Capt. Calthrop's translation was published in London. It was an improvement on the first--omissions filled up and numerous mistakes corrected--but new errors were created in the process. Dr. Giles, in justifying his translation, wrote: "It was not undertaken out of any inflated estimate of my own powers; but I could not help feeling that Sun Tzu deserved a better fate than had befallen him, and I knew that, at any rate, I could hardly fail to improve on the work of my predecessors. "Clearly, Dr. Giles' work established much of the groundwork for the work of later translators who published their own editions. Of the later editions of the ART OF WAR I have examined; two feature Giles' edited translation and notes, the other two present the same basic information from the ancient Chinese commentators found in the Giles edition. Of these four, Giles' 1910 edition is the most scholarly and presents the reader an incredible amount of information concerning Sun Tzu's text, much more than any other translation. The Giles' edition of the ART OF WAR, as stated above, was a scholarly work. Dr. Giles was a leading sinologue at the time and an assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts in the British Museum. Apparently he wanted to produce a definitive edition, superior to anything else that existed and perhaps something that would become a standard translation. It was the best translation available for 50 years. But apparently there was not much interest in Sun Tzu in English-speakin

FAQs

Who translated The Art of War in this Project Gutenberg edition?

Lionel Giles translated The Art of War from the Chinese, with introduction and critical notes.

When was Giles’s translation first published?

The translation was first published in 1910.

What does the preface explain about earlier translations?

It describes how earlier French and English translations were considered inaccurate or inadequate, citing omissions and distortions, and argues that Giles’s edition improved scholarly fidelity.

Jul 6, 2026

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