"This is the first attempt made in any language, including Chinese, to produce a history ofChinese literature.
Native scholars, with their endless critiques and appreciations of individual works, do notseem ever to have contemplated anything of the kind, realising, no
doubt, the utterhopelessness, from a Chinese point of view, of achieving even comparative success in ageneral historical survey of the subject. The voluminous character of a literature whichwas already in existence some six centuries before the Christian era, and has run onuninterruptedly until the present date, may well have given pause to writers aiming atcompleteness. The foreign student, however, is on a totally different footing. It may besaid without offence that a work which would be inadequate to the requirements of anative public, may properly be submitted to English readers as an introduction into thegreat field which lies beyond."