This phrasebook is a second edition copy of Sun Johnson's The Self Educator. Note that the title differs on the cover (Chinese and English Self-Educator) and flyleaf (The Self Educator) of the book.

Sun Johnson is described in the front pages as editor of the 'Chinese Herald' – however this newspaper was not yet in publication. Although idea for the Chinese Australian Herald was proposed as early as 1892 (the year this book was published) it did not actually commence publishing until 1894.

The main difference between this volume and the earlier edition Sun phrasebook is that the Chinese and English text in this phrasebook is a typeface rather than the handwritten form used in the earlier edition. There also appear to be fewer advertisements in this later phrasebook and more sample documents, including a 'last will and testament'.

This volume contains a Chinese preface, lists of numbers, days of the week and time-related words and is then divided into sections with words and phrases related to different occupations and situations (words for vegetablemen and fruiterers; stores; carpenters; in court; pressing for debts; applying for a situation; ordering clothes; buying clothes, shoes, socks etc; cooks; hawkers; to let houses and gardens; making bargains; on board steamers; troubles in the street; buying medicine from dispensaries). It finishes with a list of names of people and occupations and some sample documents (addressed envelope, last will and testament, invoice/receipt, cheque etc). There are advertisements at the beginning of the book.

It is unknown how this volume of Sun's The Self Educator came to be deposited in the Mitchell Library.

Sun Johnson (孫俊臣 Sun Junchen) was one of the first editors of the first Chinese-language newspaper in Sydney, the Chinese Australian Herald (廣益華報 [Guangyihuabao]) 1894-1923. He was born in either 1865 or 1868 and educated in Hong Kong and then London before migrating to Sydney in the late 1880s. Note that both phrasebook copies in the Mitchell library pre-date the publication of the newspaper.

An incomplete and very fragile volume of Sun's The Self Educator (unknown edition but similar to this volume in design) is also held at the Cooktown Historical Society.

Johnson, Sun, 'The Self Educator' 2nd edition (enlarged), Sydney, 1892.

224 pages, 20cm