Ban Zhao

Who was Ban Zhao?

Bān Zhāo, courtesy name Huiban, was the first known female Chinese historian. She completed her brother Ban Gu's work on the history of the Western Han, the Book of Han. She also wrote Lessons for Women, an influential work advising women to be submissive. She also had great interest in astronomy and mathematics and wrote poems, commemorative writings, argumentations, commentaries, essays and several longer works, not all of which survive. She became China's most famous female scholar.