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This thesis discusses Linshu, who was, along with Yanfu, one of the most important translators during the period of the modernization of China. The thesis attempts to show the reason why Linshu, who didnot have knowledge of foreign languages, became a leading translatorby considering his achievements, his translation theory, his translationmethods and evaluation of him as a translator. Linshu translated onehundred and sixty two novels from eleven countries. The novels includethose of influential writers such as William Shakespeare, CharlesDickens, Leo Tolstoy, H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle,Alexandre Dumas, Miguel de Cervantes and Daniel Defoe, whose worksare known for their artistic quality and popularity. Despite the fact thatLinshu translated novels jointly with co-translators, Linshu monopolizedthe limelight. The reason is that he put priority on readability, doingaway with the Christian thought difficult for Chinese readers’consumption, adding footnotes if deemed necessary, and verifying thetrue meaning of the original text when in doubt with the help of theoral translators. His translations came to be called ‘Linshu translatedNovels’. Before the May Fourth Movement, Linshu was credited withhaving instilled the ideas of freedom and equality in Chinese readers. But since then, he was criticized for having been an old-fashionedfeudalist, a worshipper of literary Chinese, and for having producedmistranslations as well as inappropriate literary expressions. The unfavorable reviews of his works seem attributable to the fact that hehad translated novels that did not belong to the established genres of Chinese literature. Nevertheless, he is well known by Chinese readersfor having raised awareness of the West through a variety of modernWestern novels and helped establish the status of novels in Chinese literature, thereby contributing to the development of modern Chinese literature.