Research on the Preface of the Records of the Three Kingdoms

Author: Su Jie
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: The classic historical work Romance of the Three Kingdoms has gradually formed a vast system of variant texts during its long circulation. It consists of three major series:
1. The textual series of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasty editions, various annotated and corrected versions, and unearthed ancient manuscript fragments.
2. The documentary series that cites Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including annotations in classical texts (e.g., Annotations to the Wenxuan), encyclopedias (e.g., Yiwen Lüji), and dictionaries (e.g., Yupian).
3. The documentary series that adapts Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including Zizhi Tongjian, Xiao Chang’s Continuation of the Later Han Dynasty, Xie Bi’s Seasonal Han Dynasty, and others.
This book takes the variant texts of Romance of the Three Kingdoms as its research subject, conducting comprehensive examination and study from the perspectives of linguistics, paleography, and cultural history. It resolves some issues in the identification of these variant texts, achieves the greatest possible historical restoration of their linguistic and textual states, provides correction suggestions for the authoritative editions in circulation, and also offers a reliable textual basis for modern annotations and translations of the work.