Nonfiction · about 600 BC
The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
Laozi · translated by James Legge
The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics, first published in about 600 BC, has been pulled into the Bibliomancer archive: the complete text, carefully cleaned and typeset, free to read online. Its editorial introduction is still being prepared.
Contents
New editions
Never lose your place.
This book is free to read in full, and stays that way. Leave an address: one click confirms it and opens a free account, so your progress and bookmarks sync across every device. You'll also hear when the next restored edition enters the archive. Terminate at any time.
About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Source mind
About the author
Laozi ("Old Master") is the name traditionally given to the author of the Tao Te Ching, a short, aphoristic Chinese text on the Tao ("the Way") that became foundational to philosophical and religious Taoism. According to a biography written some centuries later by the historian Sima Qian, he was an older contemporary of Confucius (traditionally placed in the sixth century BC) who worked as a court archivist in the state of Zhou before travelling west and, at a border pass, writing the book down at a guard's request. Modern scholarship generally treats this biography as legend: the text itself is usually dated some centuries later than Confucius, and may be a compilation of accumulated sayings rather than the work of one person, real or otherwise.
Adjacent records
