Williams, Samuel Wells

Williams, Samuel Wells

(1812–84) scholar, diplomat; born in Utica, N.Y. A printer's son, he directed an American mission press in Canton aand Macao (1833–45) and was secretary and interpreter to the American legation in China (1856–76). The leading sinologist of his day, he published several Chinese dictionaries, and his Middle Kingdom (1848, revised 1883) was for decades the standard English-language work on China.