Updated · each edition is described in its publisher’s own words, checked against the listing
6 in-print translations and 1 audiobook, compared by who made them, when, and what each one is actually trying to do — Laozi.
For fidelity to the original, start with D. C. Lau (1963, Penguin Classics). The longer answer. No single edition of Tao Te Ching is best for everyone, because the editions are optimised for different things: to stay closest to the original, D. C. Lau; for study, the editions with the fullest apparatus are D. C. Lau, Moss Roberts; on audio the choice is mostly which translation is being read.
Every claim below is the publisher’s or translator’s own description, shown next to it, so you can judge rather than take our word. And you can read the whole thing free on this site first.
Scriptorium Press publishes a complete new plain-English translation of Tao Te Ching, free, with a complete free audiobook. No account, no paywall — 81 works in this volume.
Start reading free → Free audiobook → Whole book on one page →Older translations, out of copyright, hosted free by Project Gutenberg, Wikisource. Not our work and not affiliate links — they are here because they are genuinely useful.
| Translator | Year | What it is | |
|---|---|---|---|
| James Legge | 1891 | the standard Victorian scholarly translation, complete with Legge's notes | Project Gutenberg → |
| Several public-domain translations | a side-by-side index of the out-of-copyright English versions | Wikisource → |
Sorted as the research file records them. The note on each row is that edition’s own published description.
| Translator | Year | Publisher | What it is | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D. C. Lau | 1963 | Penguin Classics | the standard scholarly Penguin translation, close to the received text and still the usual academic citation | Find it |
| Stephen Mitchell | 1988 | Harper (HarperPerennial, 1992) | by far the best-selling English edition, but a free interpretive version rather than a literal translation | Find it |
| Ursula K. Le Guin | 1997 | Shambhala | a poet's rendition made with the sinologist J. P. Seaton, and presented by Le Guin herself as a rendering rather than a translation | Find it |
| Red Pine (Bill Porter) | 2009 | Copper Canyon Press | the text set beside two thousand years of traditional Chinese commentators; the choice for reading the tradition, not just the poem | Find it |
| Moss Roberts | 2004 | University of California Press | a scholarly translation with substantial notes on the historical and political reading of the text | Find it |
| Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English | 1972 | Vintage | the classic illustrated edition, calligraphy and photographs alongside a spare English text | Find it |
Those are affiliate links. They cost you nothing extra and pay a small commission to the people who publish these editions, and to us.
There is one commercial recording of Tao Te Ching in our research file; the free audiobook of our own translation is the alternative.
| Narrator | Translation read | Publisher | Year | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stephen Mitchell | Stephen Mitchell | Harper | read by the translator, from his own best-selling version | Listen |
Affiliate links, including the Audible ones. They cost you nothing extra. Our own audiobook of Tao Te Ching stays free either way.
The editions noted for fidelity to the source are D. C. Lau (1963) - described as literal, close to the received text, or annotated line by line.
The most frequently recommended are D. C. Lau (1963). "Most recommended" is not the same as "best for you": a scholarly standard and an easy first read are different books, and the table on this page shows which is which.
There is 1 commercial recording. They differ mainly in which translation is being read: Stephen Mitchell reads Stephen Mitchell. A complete free audiobook of our own translation is also on this site.
Yes. Scriptorium Press publishes a complete new plain-English translation of Tao Te Ching free to read, with a complete free audiobook, no account and no paywall - 81 works in this volume.