[2] He subsequently majored in philosophy and classical studies at Tsinghua University,[2] where he was one of the few friends of Qian Zhongshu (who would go on to write one of the best-known and most highly regarded works of modern Chinese literature, Fortress Besieged).
[2] The main content of Fang's work was to proofread translations in submissions to the journal, and he corrected errors with a scholar's meticulous zeal.
In 1997, through a gift of "the students and friends of Achilles Fang," Harvard established a prize in his honor, "awarded occasionally to a doctoral dissertation on the traditional Chinese humanities or related cultural developments throughout East Asia that continues the tradition, which Achilles Fang exemplified, of rigorous textual research.
In a scene in Frederick Seidel's poem "Glory," a 1953 encounter is dramatized thus: His [Ezra Pound's] pal Achilles Fang led me to the empty attic of the Yenching Institute, In the vast gloom arranged two metal folding chairs Under the one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, And hating me, knee to knee, Unsmilingly asked, What do you know?
After coming to the United States he began to acquire a library of Western books and soon was as well known to Boston antiquarian dealers as he had been in Peking's Liu-li ch'ang.
Before his death he willed the collection to Peking University Library, after sending an initial shipment of some 5,000 volumes for which he could find no space.It was said of Fang that "he knew everything, but published little.
[10] Aside from his dissertation, his most significant publication may have been his heavily annotated translation of ten chapters from Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian, published as The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms in Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies VI (1952).