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Tsuen-hsuin Tsien, influential Chinese librarian, dies at 105

Tsuen-hsuin Tsien
Tsuen-hsuin Tsien (Family photo)

Tsuen-hsuin "T.H." Tsien, considered by colleagues as the most influential Chinese librarian in America, developed one of the country's greatest East Asian libraries at the University of Chicago.

Mr. Tsien, former curator of the Far Eastern Library of the University of Chicago, is also credited with training generations of students for East Asian libraries around the nation. Former students of his went on to head the East Asian libraries at Harvard and Princeton, as well as become senior members of the Library of Congress.

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"He was a daily presence at the library, the contents of which he knew like the back of his hand," said former colleague Edward L. Shaughnessy, a professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the U. of C. "Not only had he cataloged the core of the collection by himself, he seemed to have read each volume."

Mr. Tsien, 105, died of natural causes on Thursday, April 9, at Montgomery Place, a nursing facility in Chicago.

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The author of several books and more than 100 articles, he retired in 1978 and was the curator emeritus of the East Asian Collection of the Joseph Regenstein Library and professor emeritus of Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations (now East Asian Languages and Civilizations) at the University of Chicago.

"T.H. lived a long and extraordinarily full life," Shaughnessy said. "He liked to say that he was born under the last emperor of China."

Mr. Tsien was the author of "Written on Bamboo and Silk," originally published in 1962, which traces the development of Chinese writing from the earliest inscriptions to the advent of printing and is still regarded as a classic in the field.

His most recently wrote "Collected Writings on Chinese Culture," published in 2011.

In 2004, Mr. Tsien published a revised second edition of "Written on Bamboo and Silk" that includes material from many major documents and ancient Chinese artifacts uncovered over the 40 years since the book's first publication, as well as an afterword written by Shaughnessy.

"Even though he was already in his 90s, he oversaw much of the copy editing, which was a formidable task indeed for such a complicated book," Shaughnessy wrote in the afterword. "What is more, shortly after its publication, he arranged to have this new edition translated into Chinese and published in China."

Colleagues said Mr. Tsien's teachings and published works continue to have a profound influence on the fields of Chinese bibliography, paleography, and science and technology.

"After he retired, his colleagues kept asking him to return to work, but he had plenty to keep him busy," said his daughter, Mary Dunkel. "He remained active and productive almost to the end."

Born in Taixian (now Taizhou) China, Mr. Tsien participated in 1927 in the Northern Expedition, a military effort of the Nationalist government of China that resulted in the unification of China.

The following year, he enrolled in what is now Nanjing University and graduated in 1932 with a degree in library science. Later he worked at several major libraries, including the forerunner of the National Library of China. In December 1941, just days before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Mr. Tsien was made responsible for shipping 300,000 rare books from the library to the United States Library of Congress for safekeeping because the war was looming.

The books left the port of Shanghai and made it safely to Washington. After the war, he went to Washington to arrange for the return of the books, but the outbreak of civil war in China made their return at that time impossible.

Both Mr. Tsien and the books remained stateside, and in 1947, he was invited to manage the Far Eastern Library (now East Asian Collection) at the U. of C. He went on to receive a master's degree from the Hyde Park school in 1952 and a doctorate in 1957.

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Mr. Tsien served as curator of its East Asian Library from 1949 to 1978, and as a professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. He remained in Chicago the rest of his life.

"Beginning with his packing of the rare book collection of China's National Library in 1941 and shipping it to the United States for safekeeping during the war with Japan, he strived ceaselessly to connect China and the West," Shaughnessy said. "His efforts, that of developing the East Asian collection of the University Library into one of the truly great research libraries in the world, was undertaken in that same spirit."

In 1996, Mr. Tsien was given the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Chicago and his alma mater, Nanjing University, named its new library of the Advanced Institute of Humanities and Social Science for him in 2007.

Mr. Tsien also is survived by another daughter, Gloria Tsien, and two step-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife, Wen-ching Hsu, who was one of the first instructors of Chinese at the University of Chicago, and his eldest daughter, Ginger Tsien, both of whom died in 2008.

Services were held.

Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter.

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