Song and Yuan dynasty book format table

Author: (Qing) Jiang Biao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-01-01
Features: It is generally believed that Chinese woodblock printing books originated around the Tang and Five Dynasties period, with a history of over a thousand years. After the invention of woodblock printing technology, its use became increasingly widespread, and its influence expanded rapidly, quickly becoming one of the most important tools for disseminating ancient Chinese thought, culture, and science. In ancient times, woodblock carving required meticulous attention to every line and character, making the calculation of line spacing and character count in each book particularly significant for researching the version history and transmission of the book. The practice of recording line and character counts in ancient books is said to have originated with He Xiaoshan's collation of the Song Dynasty Edition of the Han Shu. Jiang Biao's Table of Line Formats for Song and Yuan Dynasty Woodblock Printed Books is a highly influential specialized work that systematically records the line and character formats of rare ancient books. Jiang Biao, styled Jianxia and known by the sobriquet Xuanpu, was from Yuanhe (now Suzhou, Jiangsu). He was erudite in poetry and prose, highly skilled in bibliography and textual criticism, and had an in-depth understanding of the origins and authenticity of Song and Yuan Dynasty woodblock printed books and old manuscripts. His collection of books was also extremely extensive. He compiled and published works such as Fifty Collections of Tang Dynasty Poets and Compendium of Catalogs.