Frances Wood
English historian and sinologist
Frances Wood (Chinese: 吴芳思; pinyin: Wú Fāngsī; born 1948) is an English librarian, sinologue and historian known for her writings on Chinese history, including Marco Polo, life in the Chinese treaty ports, and the First Emperor of China.
Biography
Wood was born in London in 1948, and went to art school in Liverpool in 1967, before going to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied Chinese. She went to China to study Chinese at Peking University in 1975–1976.
Wood joined the staff of the British Library in London in 1977 as a junior curator, and later served as curator of Chinese collections until her retirement in 2013. She is also a member of the steering committee of the International Dunhuang Project, and the editor of the Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society. She was also a governor of Ashmount Primary School for 20 years, relinquishing this post on the completion of her current term of office in July 2014.
She has argued in her 1995 book, Did Marco Polo go to China?, that the book of Marco Polo (Il Milione) is not the account of a single person, but is a collection of travellers' tales. This book's claims about Polo's travels has been heavily criticized by Stephen G. Haw, David O. Morgan and Peter Jackson as lacking basic academic rigor.
In May 2012, she appeared on In Our Time on BBC Radio 4, talking about Marco Polo; she appeared again in the 2015 episode on Chinese legalism. In December 2012 she appeared on the Christmas University Challenge special as a member of the Newnham College, Cambridge team.
The public source identifies “Frances Wood” as english historian and sinologist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Frances, Wood and English.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Frances Wood”, the useful work is to connect “english historian and sinologist” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5479020. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1967, 1975 and 1976.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Frances Wood”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Frances Wood primary sources, Frances Wood archive and Frances research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Frances Wood”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Frances Wood” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.