Sir William Jones

Robert Clark (The Literary Encyclopedia)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Dates

Born 28 Sep 1746
Died 17 Apr 1794
Activity 1766-1794

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Translator

Resources

Jones' Works

Save to Bookshelf

Born 28 September, 1746 Sir William Jones was among the first British scholars to take a serious interest in Oriental cultures. Educated at Harrow and University of Oxford, he studied Classics and Semitic languages (Arabic and Hebrew) and became interested in Persian. He published a

Grammar of the Persian Language

in 1771 and to support himself trained for the law, being called to the bar in 1774. He published his translation of seven Arabic odes, the

Moallakât

in 1782 and was given knighthood and joined the East India Company Civil Service as a supreme court judge in 1783. Once in Calcutta he formed the Asiatic Society of Bengal to foster scholarly interest in Muslim and Hindu cultures. He published the

Muhammedan Law of Inheritance

in 1792 and

Institutes of Hindu Law

just before he…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

364 words

Citation: Clark, Robert. "Sir William Jones". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2406, accessed 23 November 2024.]