Designed as an advanced/intermediate level textbook for students, this book will meet the needs of those making the transition between 'textbook texts' to 'real texts'. Dr Wagner's many years' experience of teaching classical Chinese are brought to bear on one of the most difficult aspects of learning the language - making the progression from introductory textbooks on classical Chinese, which do not present serious philological problems, to real historical texts, in which such problems abound. The text used is the biography of Huo Guang in the Han Shu together with the commentaries compiled by Yan Shigu.

Introduction, Advice to the student, Background reading, Hud Guang and his time, Dictionaries and reference works, This textbook, The text, The glosses, Uses for this textbook