Edward Jewitt Robinson

[2]: 48  Robinson published a collection of ancient Tamil texts, including the Tirukkural, translated into English in 1873.

Facilitating the evangelical works of the missionaries like Constanzo Beschi, Ziegenbalg, and Percival, Robinson published an enlarged version of the work under the title Tales and Poems of South India in 1885.

In the preface of his second work, he acknowledged the earlier translations by F. W. Ellis, W. H. Drew, Karl Graul and Charles E.

His English contemporaries greatly praised his verse translation, although native scholars of later years, such as T. P. Meenakshisundaram, had some reservations about its fidelity to the original.

[3] George Uglow Pope, in his preface to The Sacred Kurral, felicitated Robinson thus:[4] Since this work was sent to the press, I have seen a charming little volume entitled, Tales and Poems of South India, from the Tamil, by Rev.