Audiobooks by James Legge

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Essentials of Daoism: Including: The Sayings of Lao Tzu, The Dao De Jing, Zhuangzi, Lieh Tzu, and Su

This book comprises five classic works of Chinese mysticism. Culturally, these are the companion works to Confucius’ thoughts, as expanded by Mencius. Confucianism is very much the Apollonian side of Chinese culture. It focuses on matters of ethics, hierarchy, responsibility, and social obligation. Daoism is the other side of the coin, focused on abstraction and uncertainty. The two translators included in this volume were very different men. While they wrote in the same period, their audiences were distinct from one another, and this comes through in their differing approaches to the original texts they are working with. One was a missionary, looking to ensure that his fellow spreaders of the word could understand as completely and correctly as possible the culture that they had come into. The other was a curator at the British Museum, who popularized the first English translations for a thoroughly domestic market.

Chuang Tzu, James Legge, Lao Tzu, Laozi, Lie Yukou, Liezi, Lionel Giles, Sun Tzu, Sun Wu, Zhuang Zhou (Author), Charles Featherstone (Narrator)

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Zhuangzi | Chuang Tzu: The foundation of chinese esoteric thought

The Chuang Tsu is one of the most important books in Chinese literature and philosophy. It is one of the two foundational texts of Daoism. Also titled Zhuangzi, it is a commentary and extension of the Dao de Jing/Tao Te Ching, in the same way that Mencius' Analects are an exploration of Confucius' thought. Written in around 300BCE during the Warring States period, it is a collection of anecdotes, fables, and stories that are as silly and funny as they are profound and thought provoking. Where the Dao De Jing is a distilled and poetic exploration of the Way, Zhuangi takes a much more human and real-world path through the mysteries of the Dao. Using often humorous anecdotes, allegories, parables and fables mixed with conversations about particular aspects of the Way. James Legge’s translation is perhaps the most sophisticated and exacting one in existence. It carries as much as possible of the subtlety and detail in the original masterwork. It is regarded as one of the greatest literary works in all of Chinese history, and has been called 'the most important pre-Qin text for the study of Chinese literature.' Its main themes are of spontaneity in action and of freedom from the human world and its conventions. The fables and anecdotes in the text illustrate the illusion of distinctions between good and bad, large and small, life and death, and human and nature. While other ancient Chinese philosophers focused on moral and personal duty, Zhuangzi promoted carefree wandering and becoming one with 'the Way' (Dào 道) by following nature. It has influenced great Chinese and Western writers for more than 2000 years, including Oscar Wilde, Yeats, Nietzsche, Sima Xiangru, Li Bai, Su Shi and Lu You.

James Legge, Zhuang Zi (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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Dao De Jing: The Classic Victorian-Era Translation

James Legge was one of the first great popularisers of Eastern ideas and religion in the West. In this foundational work, he provides a translation of the Dao De Jing/ Tao Te Ching that stands up well today, over a hundred years later. Book versions illustrated with historical images of Lao Tzu's various legends from Chinese mythology.

James Legge, Lao-Tzu (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

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