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STOP PRESS
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in USA is
running an exhibition on LYT in September 2007
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street,
New York, New York 10028-0198.
General Information: 212-535-7710
LINK HERE I only discovered
Dr Lin Yutang's works in 1993; my landlady had a copy of "The Importance
of Living" on her bookshelf, and she encouraged me to read it. Wow
!!! To say it changed my life would be a slight understatement. Since
then I have become an avid collecter and reader of his books, and I have now collected multiple copies of all but 4 of his English language books, and a couple in German and Chinese. If you are looking for a Lin Yutang book, please email me and I may be able to help.
Dr Lin was born
in Changchow in the Fukien province of China on Oct 10th 1895, son of a Christian Minister. He was raised
as a Christian, but soon abandoned Christianity for the old Chinese
Pagan religions of Taoism and Buddhism, only to rediscover Christianity
later in his life.
He took his degrees
in St. John's (Shanghai), Harvard, and Leipzig. He was a teacher at
Tsinghua University, Beijing in 1916-1919; married and went with his
wife to Harvard in 1919 where he studied Comparitive Literature under
Bliss Perry and Irving Babbitt until 1920. They then moved to France,
where Dr Lin worked with the YMCA for Chinese labourers at Le Creusot,
1920-1921. He studied at Jena and Leipzig (where he received his Doctorate)
1921-1923; was Professor of English at Beijing National University
1923-1926 and Dean of Women's Normal College in 1926.
He was chased
out of Beijing by the "Dog-Meat" General in 1926, blacklisted
among the radical professors; became Dean of Arts in Amoy University,
1926 and then joined the Wuhan Nationalistic Government as a secretary
to the Foreign Ministry at Hankow in the first half of 1927 - "liked
the revolution but tired of the revolutionists". Since the Summer
of 1927, he devoted himself entirely to writing. After 1928 he lived mainly in the USA. He was the editor
of various literary magazines such as Lunyu, Jenchienshih and Yuchoufeng,
1929-1935 in Shanghai. Later in his life he was Head of the Arts and
Letters Division of UNESCO, 1948. Lin was very interested in mechanical things, and devised and patented a Chinese typewriter. Lin's wife,
Lin Tsuifeng wrote a cookery book, which popularized Chinese cookery in America. Dr. Lin wrote a preface to one of her cookbooks.
Lin Yutang has written
over 35 books in English, a bibliography may be found Here.
In my Humble opinion, the most profound of these is "The Importance
of Living", the one that started it all for me, closely followed by
"From Pagan to Christian" the story of Dr Lin's return to Christianity.
Lin Yutang died
in 1976 and was buried at his home in Yangmingshan, Taiwan. His old home has now been turned into a museum, which is run by Soochow University.
Some years ago,
a friend in the USA published his degree thesis about Lin Yutang.
He has very kindly given me permission to host a zipped copy of this
document on my humble website. You may download it HERE
Thanks to Ryan Murray !!
You may be able to find copies of Dr Lin's
works at various UK specialist booksellers, alternatively,
check here for
copies of Dr Lins books for sale
Thank you for your interest in Dr Lin Yutang. |
