Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare

Who was Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare?

Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare was a Jesuit missionary to China. Born in Cherbourg, he departed for China in 1698, and worked as a missionary in the Guangxi region.

In 1724, after the Yongzheng Emperor virtually banned Christianity over the Chinese Rite Controversy, he was confined with his colleagues in Canton, and later banished to Macau, where he died. His Notitia linguae sinicae is the first important Chinese grammar in Europe. His letters can be found in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de Chine series.

Father de Prémare is among the missionaries who furnished Father Jean-Baptiste du Halde with the material for his "Description de la Chine". Among his contributions were translations from the Book of History; eight odes of the Shijing; and the first translation into a European language of a Chinese drama, the "Orphan of Zhao", titled L'Orphelin de la Maison de Tchao. Premaré sent the translation to Étienne Fourmont, a member of the French Academy. However, the play came in the possession of Jean Baptiste Du Halde instead, who published it in his Description Géographique, Historique, Chronologique, Politique et Physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinois in 1735, although he had no permission from Prémare or Fourmont to do so.