This monograph is the first study of the reception of China in English literature, and the first comprehensive study on the image of China in Western literature written by prominent Chinese scholars such as Qian Zhongshu, Fan Cunzhong and Chen Shouyi. It complements such studies on the literary reception of China as Pierre Martino's L'Orient dans la litterature francaise au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siecle (1906), Ursula Aurich's China im Spiegel der deutschen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts (1935), and E. Horst Tscharner's China in der deutschen Dichtung bis zur Klassik (1939).