I wish to thank The British Academy for their generous Fellowship which assisted my research on this book. I would also like to take this opportunity of thanking the University of Michigan for enabling me to commence my degree programme some years ago by awarding me a National Defense Foreign Language Fellowship. I am indebted to my former publisher, Mr. Rayner S. Unwin, now retired, for his helpful advice in producing the first edition.

For this revised edition, I wish to thank sincerely my colleagues whose useful corrections and comments have been incorporated into my text. They are Professor Burton Watson, Professor Jean-Pierre Diény, Professor David R. Knechtges, and Professor Joseph R. Allen. More­over, I am happy to acknowledge the contribution of Professor Hans H. Frankel in terms of his valuable suggestions and his continuing scholarly research in this field. Finally, I am delighted that the University of Hawaii Press has reissued this book and has allowed a generous number of revisions. Its editor, Sharon F. Yamamoto, has been extremely help­ful in arranging for the publication of this new edition.