Research on Variant Texts of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Author: Su Jie
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: The historical classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms has gradually formed a vast system of variant texts during its long circulation. It consists of three major series: First, the textual series of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasty editions, various annotated and collated versions, and unearthed ancient manuscript fragments; second, the documentary series that cites Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including classical annotations (e.g., Annotations to the Wenxuan), encyclopedias (e.g., Yiwen Lüji), and dictionaries (e.g., Yupian); third, 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 linguistic, textual, and cultural historical perspectives. It resolves some issues in the identification of these variant texts, achieves the greatest possible historical restoration of their linguistic and textual state, provides correction suggestions for the current authoritative editions, and also offers a reliable textual basis for the modern annotations and translations of the book.