Qing Dynasty Edition Illustrations (Full 5 Volumes)

Author: Huang Yongnian, Jia Erqiang, edited by Xu Zhongliang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1997-05-01
Features: How to identify the edition of bound ancient books has long been a challenge. In the past, book dealers often pretended Qing dynasty printed books as Song and Yuan dynasty famous editions. Even the knowledgeable Mr. Cang Yuan of the Cang Garden sometimes made mistakes, let alone others. A few days ago, while reading the Suzhou Diary by Japanese author Takakura Masazumi, I also came across mentions of certain Suzhou bookshops frequently falsifying ancient book editions. Although such practices no longer exist today, when you acquire a bound ancient book without a printed date on its inner cover, determining its publication period remains a difficult knowledge-based question. Of course, solving this problem primarily relies on experience—the more books one reads, the better one becomes at identification. However, fewer ancient books are now circulating in the market, and their variety is becoming increasingly limited. Borrowing ancient books from libraries has also become more inconvenient, restricting access to more original texts. Even staff at libraries or ancient bookstores, despite handling many books, face the challenge of losing experienced elders and the time it takes for new generations to accumulate expertise, a process that is often long and difficult to pass down orally. Therefore, the best approach is to have some illustrated catalogs that capture representative ancient book editions for comparison with actual copies, thereby improving the identification skills of the general public. Such catalogs serve as a way to transfer the rich experience of a few to the masses in a visual manner, achieving twice the result with half the effort. Several such catalogs have been published in the past, such as Shijian Tongqin Lou Book Shadows, Books Seen at She Garden, An Initial Catalog of Ming Dynasty Woodblock Prints, and the comprehensive work A Catalog of Chinese Woodblock Prints. However, among these, only An Initial Catalog of Ming Dynasty Editions is dated, reflecting the full spectrum of representative Ming dynasty editions and serving as a compass for identifying Ming dynasty publications. The other catalogs primarily focus on art appreciation, emphasizing the inclusion of rare Song and Yuan dynasty editions, as well as valuable Ming dynasty versions, with little or no attention to Qing dynasty publications. However, since Song and Yuan dynasty editions are now virtually impossible to find in the market and Ming dynasty editions are becoming increasingly scarce, there is a growing need for a catalog that reflects representative Qing dynasty editions. The recently published A Catalog of Qing Dynasty Editions, compiled by Huang Yongnian and Jia Erqiang and published by Zhejiang People’s Publishing House, meets this need. This catalog inherits the characteristics of An Initial Catalog of Ming Dynasty Editions, not only focusing on rare and unique book shadows but also striving for comprehensiveness and representativeness, including even common and commercially printed editions that are not particularly outstanding. It essentially achieves the goal of reflecting the full scope of Qing dynasty editions. The catalog is divided into five volumes, selecting and printing 350 Qing dynasty editions, mostly featuring a single book shadow, with occasional two-page spreads, compiling representative versions from various periods and styles of the Qing dynasty. Unlike Ming dynasty editions, Qing dynasty private and official prints share similar fonts and formats, so the catalog cannot categorize them by type like An Initial Catalog of Ming Dynasty Editions but arranges them chronologically. This arrangement also has its advantages, as it better illustrates the evolution of printing styles over time. In fact, over the past year, I have personally experienced the utility of this catalog. Through comparisons with actual books, I have gained a much deeper understanding of written and carved texts, square-character editions, imitated Song style, reverse Song style, movable-type prints, and more. The textual annotations in this catalog are also commendable. Each entry, though brief—just a few dozen or hundreds of words—often contains rich information, covering everything from the origin of the edition to its circulation. For example, A Catalog of Unpublished Books of the Current Dynasty, which I purchased from a bookstore last year, was initially dismissed as an ordinary Guangxu dynasty edition. However, reading this catalog revealed that the printed version is extremely rare, and I wonder where the other copy has since gone. At the end of the catalog, there is an essay titled A Brief Overview of Qing Dynasty Editions, which concludes: “Overall, among Qing dynasty editions, aside from movable-type, multi-color, illustrated, and woodblock prints, which each have their own merits compared to Ming dynasty editions, the general carved woodblock prints not only far outnumber Ming dynasty editions in quantity but also surpass them in quality, reaching the pinnacle of printing.” Therefore, ancient book enthusiasts and researchers should not underestimate Qing dynasty editions, nor should they undervalue them in favor of earlier versions, focusing solely on pre-Ming dynasty books.