George Carter Stent (1833–1884) was an English soldier in India and China, an agent of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, and a translator of Chinese texts into English.
Life
editGeorge Carter Stent was born into a family of modest means in Canterbury in 1833.[1] He was the second son of James Stent, of 2 King's Bridge, Canterbury.[2] Shortly after his twentieth birthday he joined the British Army as a soldier of the 14th (King's Light) Dragoons and proceeded with the regiment to India, where in the 1850s he witnessed and later wrote about the Great Mutiny.[3] By the mid-1860s, he was in China, serving in the guard of the British legation at Peking.[3] He displayed an affinity for Chinese literature, and with the help of Thomas Francis Wade was recruited into the Maritime Customs Service.[3] He died on 1 September 1884, at Takaw (Kaohsiung), China.[2]
Works
edit- Scraps from my Sabretasche: Being Personal Adventures While in the 14th (King's Light) Dragoons (London: W.H. Allen & Co.).[3]
- Chinese and English Vocabulary in the Pekinese Dialect (Shanghai: Customs Press, 1871).[4]
- Chinese and English Pocket Dictionary (Shanghai: Kelly & Co., 1874).[5]
- The Jade Chaplet, in Twenty-Four Beads (London: London by Trübner & Co., 1874), a collection of songs, ballads, &c., from the Chinese.[6][7]
- Entombed Alive, and Other Poems (William H. Allen & Co., 1878), from the Chinese.[8][9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Idema 2017, p. 119.
- ^ a b "Deaths". Whitstable Times. 29 November 1884. p. 4.
- ^ a b c d Idema 2017, p. 120.
- ^ Idema 2017, p. 121.
- ^ Idema 2017, p. 122.
- ^ Idema 2017, p. 123.
- ^ "Literary and Artistic". The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. 7 March 1874. p. 6.
- ^ Idema 2017, pp. 123, 125, 127.
- ^ "Literature, Science, and Art". The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post. 28 September 1878. p. 6.
Bibliography
edit- Idema, Wilt L. (2017). "George Carter Stent (1833–1884) as a Translator of Traditional Chinese Popular Literature". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR). 39: 119–33. JSTOR 45014213.
- MacKay, Lynn (2023). "3. Life Abroad". Women and the British Army, 1815–1880. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 112–155. doi:10.2307/j.ctv37kck66.8.
- "Literary Notices". Supplement to the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle. 24 May 1884. p. 12.
- "Notes of the Quarter (March, April, May)". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 19 (3): 500–51. 1887. JSTOR 25208873.