Richard Casper Rudolph; (May 21, 1909 - April 9, 2003)[1] was an American professor of Chinese Literature and Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

[1] He was raised by his grandmother in poverty, living at one point in a water tower and then later in a dirt walled basement as he worked his way through his university education, which took him 14 years.

[2] He received his BA in Foreign Trade in 1932, his MA in 1936, and his PhD in Chinese literature in 1942, all at UC Berkeley.

With Creel and Chang Tsung-Ch'ien, he co-authored the three volume textbook Literary Chinese by the Inductive Method, published in 1938, 1939 and 1952 by the University of Chicago Press.

[2] After coming to UCLA, Rudolph was awarded a Fulbright Program scholarship for research in China during the culminating years of its revolution.

[2] When he first arrived at UCLA, the university library possessed only a single volume in Chinese, a telephone directory.

[7] A true bibliophile, he was never happier than when examining a rare book or manuscript—or a number of works by some famous Chinese calligrapher, separated for centuries and now brought together again by him after years of tireless searching—unless it was when he was showing someone else these latest finds.

[9][citation needed] After retiring, Rudolph took up the direction of the University of California Education Abroad Program and continued his research.