PREFACE
The San Kuo is distinctly eastern, a book adapted for the story-teller; one can almost hear him. It abounds in names and genealogies, which seem never to tire the eastern reader or listener. Happily, English admits pronouns in place of so many strangely-spelt names which ought to appear, and they have been used; and as most persons have at least a tzŭ in addition to the hsing and ming I have tried to lighten the burden on the foreign reader’s memory by using only the hsing or hsing and ming of a man, suppressing his tzŭ except in the case of very well-known characters.
Manchu, Japanese, Siamese, and possibly other versions of the San Kuo have been made, and now to these I have attempted to add one in English, with what measure of success I leave to curious readers qualified to compare my rendering with the original.
The Wade system of romanisation, in which the vowels are Italian, has been used.
In conclusion, I wish to put on record my gratitude to Mr. Chen Ti Tsen who typed the text, and Mr. E. Manico Gull who has read the proofs.
