The Analects

Compiled by disciples in the centuries after Confucius, the Analects is a collection of short sayings, questions, and glimpses of the master with pupils such as Zilu, Zigong, and Yan Hui. Topics include filial piety, ritual propriety, the qualities of the gentleman, and government by moral example rather than by harsh law. Scattered remarks treat music, friendship, and the frustration of office withheld. There is no continuous story and no systematic treatise. The book is a handbook of ethical and political conversation from early China, arranged in twenty books of fragments, not a biography and not a legal code.

Bound in light brown cloth printed with a wrap-around colour picture. Dark brown slipcase.