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Lao Tze & Sum Nung Au-Young, trans. (1893-1943) Tao Teh King: The Bible of Taoism, Translator's presentation copy.
New York: March & Greenwood, 1938.
First edition, limited issue, octavo; copy number 32 numbered and signed by the translator on preliminary blank; text printed in blue on one side of double leaves, folded once in the Chinese style; bound in red silk saddle-stitched wrappers, with title in Chinese painted in gold on the front panel; 9 1/8 x 6 in.
This is the first edition of Lao Tze's foundational Taoist text translated into English by a Chinese author. Writer and scholar Sum Nung Au-Young founded the New York School of Chinese Philosophy and Cultural Studies in 1927. While teaching students the Tao Teh King, he noted the absence of Western translations by native Chinese scholars. "The widely differing versions of its meaning in the various editions led my students and friends to think it was my duty as a Chinese to offer a new and clarified English version to the Western world." Unfortunately, the completion of Au-Young's manuscript translation coincided with the Wall Street crash of 1929, resulting in significant publishing delays. When the markets began to recover nearly a decade later, his work finally reached the public.
