A Sketch of Chinese History, Ancient and Modern: Comprising a Retrospect of the Foreign Intercourse and Trade with China

Remarkable yet controversial, the Prussian-born Protestant missionary Karl Friedrich August Gutzlaff (1803-51) sought to spread Christianity in the Far East. A gifted linguist, he sailed to Siam and worked on translating the Bible into Thai. The British missionary Robert Morrison had fired his interest in China, and Gutzlaff later focused his evangelising efforts there, learning several dialects and distributing translated literature. He also worked for the East India Company, notably serving as an interpreter during negotiations for the Treaty of Nanking. Also reissued in this series are his Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China (1834) and China Opened (1838). The present work, published in two volumes in 1834, aimed to diminish Anglophone ignorance of China's vast history. Volume 2 traces events since the beginning of the Qing dynasty in 1644. Gutzlaff then discusses Christianity's introduction and other foreign influence, chiefly the commercial activities of European powers.