Translation of The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe in China: A Diachronic Study

The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe has been in China for more than one hundred years and there are altogether about 146 Chinese versions since it was firstly translated into Chinese in 1902. The present paper aims to study the translation of The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe diachronically by analyzing why the novel has been translated so many times till now and discussing the role the translated versions have been playing in the Chinese literature of four different historical periods—the first period from the late Qing Dynasty to the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (1902 to 1948), the second one from the foundation of the PRC to the Cultural Revolution (1949 to 1965), the third period of the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), and the fourth one from the end of Cultural Revolution to 2012 (1977 to 2012)