Frederic Henry Balfour (fl. 1871–1908) was a British expatriate editor, essayist, author, and sinologist, living in Shanghai during the Victorian era. He is most notable for his translation of the writings known today as the Tao Te Ching. Many of these translations appeared in his 1884 treatise: Taoist Texts: Ethical, Political and Speculative, also known simply as Taoist Texts. Although later discoveries of supplemental manuscripts have somewhat obscured Balfour’s early sinology, his work is still used as a primary source for many scholars of the Tao Te Ching.
Frederic Balfour followed the Wade-Giles method of transcription favored during the Victorian era. The first rough translations of ancient Chinese texts helped to shape future methods of transliteration.
Frederic H. Balfour also proved to be skeptical that Laozi, sometimes known as Lao Tzu or Lieh Tzu, was the author of the Taoist book Tao Te Ching; notably writing in Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook that Laozi “is a philosopher who never lived.” Balfour believed that Laozi was an amalgam of wise ministers, or perhaps a literary device which Chuang Tzu used, as he expounded on his philosophy to students; very similar to the academic debate over the greek philosopher Socrates.
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