Abstract: In 1815, British sinologist Sir John Francis Davis was the first to translate Chinese novel Three Dedicated Chambers into English, which was then retranslated by him in 1822. The retranslated version was totally different from the former one in terms of diction, sentence construction and text organization, reflecting that the translation ethics of the translator evolved from shelving the differences to seeking common ground in his translation activity. This was affected by the ideological elements, poetics and the translator's identity in a specified social and cultural background.