I
Laying Plans
Sun Tzu · Ancient Wisdom, Volume I
The Art of War Illustrated
The Complete Illuminated Edition
Sun Tzu's thirteen chapters in Lionel Giles' translation of 1910, printed whole and word for word among 85 paintings by Alexander Gabriel ZoderoT.
13Chapters
383Verses
85Painted plates
188Full-colour pages
The text, whole
Every verse, on the page.
All 383 verses are here, numbered the way Giles numbered them, with no commentary and no modern paraphrase beside them. The one change to his text is typographic: sixteen of his dashes are set as colons.
Each chapter opens on a painting of its own. After that, every spread sets a run of verses beside a scene, seventy-one of them, and one last painting follows the final verse.
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night,and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”Sun Tzu · The Art of War, Chapter VII, Verse 19
Sun Tzu's world
Set in his own century.
The paintings keep to the world the book came from, the state of Wu around 500 BC: bronze ritual vessels, red banners, walled gates, mountain roads, a camp burning at night. You will not find a horseman anywhere in the book. Cavalry reached Chinese armies after Sun Tzu's time, so it stays out of the pictures too.
The thirteen chapters
Every chapter opens on its own painting.
II
Waging War
III
Attack by Stratagem
IV
Tactical Dispositions
V
Energy
VI
Weak Points and Strong
VII
Manœuvering
VIII
Variation of Tactics
IX
The Army on the March
X
Terrain
XI
The Nine Situations
XII
The Attack by Fire
XIII
The Use of Spies
The chapter paintings
In Giles' words
Three verses, in Giles' words.
“All warfare is based on deception.”
“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
“Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Questions
About this edition
Which translation is it?
Lionel Giles' translation of 1910, complete and word for word, with his verse numbers kept.
Is anything left out?
No. All thirteen chapters and all 383 verses are here, with no abridgement and no commentary.
How is it illustrated?
With 85 full-colour painted plates: thirteen chapter openings, seventy-one openings that carry the text, and a closing plate.
Where can I get it?
Are there other illuminated editions?
The Book of Enoch and Hesiod's Theogony, both complete.
Is there a summary to read first?
All thirteen chapters explained, and thirty verses in Giles' words.
Which translation should I read?
Our guide compares the main English translations and editions.
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