Émmanuel-Édouard Chavannes

Émmanuel-Édouard Chavannes (5 October 1865–29 January 1918) was a French sinologist and expert on Chinese history and religion, and is best known for his translations of major segments of Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, the work's first ever translation into a Western language.

Chavannes was a prolific and influential scholar, and was one of the most accomplished Sinologists of the modern era notwithstanding his relatively early death at age 52 in 1918. A successor of 19th century French sinologists Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat and Stanislas Julien, Chavannes was largely responsible for the development of Sinology and Chinese scholarship into a respected field in the realm of French science. (Source Accessed Apr 21, 2022)