Robert Morrison and the Protestant Plan for China

Sent alone to China by the London Missionary Society in 1807, Robert Morrison (1782--1834), was one of the earliest Protestant missionaries in East Asia. During some twenty-seven years in China and Malacca, he worked as translator for the East India Company, translated the New Testament into Chinese, and compiled the first Chinese-English dictionary. He also built the foundation of Chinese Protestant Christianity. This book explores the strategies behind Morrison's mission to China. It shows that, in promoting Protestantism, Morrison worked to a standard template developed by his tutor David Bogue at the Gosport Academy in England. By bringing this template into conversation with Morrison's archival collections, the book argues that Morrison's influential mission must be seen within the historical context of British evangelism.

Christopher A. Daily is a faculty member at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.