Letter to Wen Yongchang1 (February 24,1915)
Mr. Yongchang:
Of the enclosed eleven books, the cloth case for Shengshi weiyan2 3 is missing, and
Xinmin congbao* has lost its front page. My sincerest apologies. I hope you will forgive
me.
Respectfully,
Zedong
The eleventh day of the first lunar month
Also find enclosed two Chinese language textbooks, and one letter.
1 Wen Yongchang (1884–1961), ming Yinchang, was Mao’s cousin.
2 Shengshi weiyan (Words of Warning to an Affluent Age), by the comprador Zheng Guanying, was
one of the books Mao cited two decades later, in talking to Edgar Snow, as having greatly influenced
his early thinking.
3 This fortnightly periodical, of which the title is variously translated as Renovation of the People
and New People’s Miscellany, was the organ of Liang Qichao, who soon acquired great ascendancy over
Mao. (On Liang, see note 58 to Mao’s “Classroom Notes” of 1913.)