William George Aston
William George Aston (born April 9, 1841 in Derry , † November 22, 1911 in Beer in the southern English county of Devon) was a British consular officer in Japan and Korea .
After working in the consular service in Japan and Korea, he was British Consul General in Korea from 1884 to 1886.
Japanology
Aston was also one of the top three British Japanologists working in Japan in the 19th century. The other two were Ernest Mason Satow and Basil Hall Chamberlain .
He was the first translator of Nihongi into the English language . He has given several lectures to the Asiatic Society of Japan .
In 1912, Cambridge University Library acquired 10,000 rare Japanese volumes from the Aston and Ernest Satow collections, which formed the starting point for today's vast collections.
Works
- WG Aston 1879, ' HMS Phaeton at Nagasaki', Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan Volume 7: pp. 323-336
- A Grammar of the Japanese Spoken Language . 4th edition. Lane, Crawford & Co., London, Kelly & Walsh, London, Hakubunsha, Tokyo, Trübner & Co., London 1888 ( digitized in the Internet Archive )
- A History of Japanese Literature . In: Edmund Gosse (Ed.): Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: VI . William Heinemann, London 1899 ( digitized in the Internet Archive)
- Nihongi, Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to AD 697 . Volume I and II, In: Transactions and Proceedings of The Japan Society London , Supplement I. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Limited, London 1896 ( digitized in the Internet Archive)
- A Grammar of the Japanese Written Language . 3rd revised edition. Luzac & Co., London, Lane, Crawford & Co., Yokohama 1904 ( digitized in the Internet Archive)
- Shinto (The Way of the Gods) . Longmans, Green and Co., New York / Bombay 1905 ( digitized in the Internet Archive)
- Shinto. The Ancient Religion of Japan . Constable & Company, Ltd., London 1921 (first published no later than 1907; digitized in the Internet Archive)
Web links
- "Aston Cambridge and Korea," Cambridge University, Department of East Asian Studies, 2008. (Eng.)
- The History of Japanese Literature by WG Aston (Yokohama: Kelly and Walsh, 1899) (Engl.)
- Portrait of Ashton in the National Portrait Gallery (London)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Aston, William George |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Japanologist and consular officer in Japan and Korea |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 9, 1841 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Derry |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 22, 1911 |
| Place of death | Beer (Devon) |