China books Christmas calendar (7)

Radical list from Kleczkowski’s book. A radical is an indexing component or semantic indicator, and the part of a Chinese character under which it is listed in dictionaries.

Today we have a ”complete” course in Chinese in the calendar, Count Michel Alexandre Kleczkowski’s (1818-1886) Cours graduel et complet de Chinois parlé et écrit, first edition from 1876. As seen from the title the book is supposedly also progressive, but to what extent it is ”complete” is a little difficult to know. The author might simply have wanted to indicate that it contains a complete course, not that one’s knowledge of Chinese would be complete after finishing the book…Kleczkowski was born in Poland but came to France as a political refugee in 1842 according to research by French sinologist Marianne Bastid-Bruguière. In France he started studying Chinese, and soon was drawn to diplomatic work due to his fluency in English, Polish, German, French and Chinese. When China was forced to open up after the Opium War, Kleczkowski was sent there in 1848 and held various diplomatic posts until 1863. After return to France he competed with none less than Stanislas Julien (1797-1873) about the Chinese chair at l’École des langues orientales (today INALCO), and in 1871 was finally appointed.

Our book is not only interesting as an early example of Chinese teaching in Europe, but also for its previous owner. The author, Kleczkowski, has signed the book for ”Monsieur Naudet, Membre de l’Institut” with an ”enthusiastic and grateful tribute from the author” (please correct, French is not really my language). This ”Monsieur Naudet” ought to be Joseph Naudet (1786–1878), French historian and Latinist who was the ”secrétaire perpétuel” of Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. But how did Gaudet’s book end up in Gothenburg? It could have been Bernhard Karlgren who got hold of it when he studied for Paul Pelliot (1878-1945) and Édouard Chavannes (1865-1918) in Paris 1912-1914, but it is difficult to know for sure.

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