8vo. Contemporary cloth, uncut; original printed yellow wrappers bound in (light soiling to wrappers). Provenance: William George's Sons (booksellers' label affixed to wrapper).

FIRST COMPLETE ENGLISH TRANSLATION, arguably the best translation of Sun Tzu's military treatise in the twentieth century, commonly known as the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. First translated into French in 1772 by French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, and a partial translation into English was attempted by British officer Everard Ferguson Calthrop in 1905. Giles, the leading Sinologue of his day, was not fond of either, calling Amiot's translation an "imposture" of the original and Calthrop's knowledge of Chinese was "far too scanty." It was not until the publication in 1963 of Samuel Griffith's translation that Giles met any sort of challenge at all.