A Corpus And Monographic Study Of Chinese Printed Books In The British Library

The British Library is renowned for its magnificent collection,with undoubtedly the most famous of its collections being the Dunhuang Collections,as well as other Xi Xia,Tibetan,Kucha,Sanskrit,Miao,Manchu,and maps collections.However,the vast number of over 6400 ancient Chinese books has remained unknown and less explored by the academic community.Although in recent years,scholars have focused on the study of the collections of Chinese books in the British Library,and many research results have been published,the overall observation of them is still lacking.In 2017,Dr.Wang Ke was entrusted to catalog more than 700 Chinese manuscripts in the British Library,and wrote his doctoral dissertation "A corpus and case study of Chinese Manuscripts in the British Library" after returning to China.The remaining 5552 Chinese ancient printed books still need to be investigated.The author visited British Library from February to July 2019,and conducted a visual inspection of over 2400 Chinese printed ancient books.Based on this inspection,this paper adopts the method of philology to deeply reveal the general composition,collection characteristics,historical sources,catalogues and literature value by analyzing literariness,combing history,writing chronicles and book studies.The prolegomenon section analyzes the significance of the topic selection of the paper,traces the overall research on the collection of English and Chinese books by sinologists and Chinese scholars both domestically and internationally,the materials currently available,the source of this dissertation,innovation points and shortcomings.It is believed that the Chinese books collected in the British Library have not received corresponding attention for a long time,and there is still a lack of relevant organization and research.The first chapter is a panoramic study,this introduction is divided into three sections.The first section analyzes that the books of Philosophical Writings(子部)are the largest proportion this collection,due to the emphasis on collecting religious literature such as Buddhism,Christianity,and Taoism.Historical Records(史部)are second large,due to its large number of recent-modern materials,it is believed that it has great literary value and characteristics.Based on this,we calculated the dynasties in which those books were produced,and could study the collection characteristics of the British Library’s preference for Chinese collections.In the second section,these Chinese books are mainly obtained through donations and purchases,originating from merchants,book collectors,missionaries,politicians,soldiers,scholars,and others.Among them,Sloane,Foucquet’s collection,Morrison’s collection,Klapproth and many collections from the twice Opium Wars are well worthed.The sources of ancient Chinese books in the British Library could be divided into three periods,namely the early collection period,the development and growth period,and the rare collection period,divided by 1843 and 1912 as time points.This section analyzes the relationship between economic,trade,political,and other exchanges between the UK and China.The third section explores the historical process of the catalogues for Chinese ancient books,introducing such as Sir Sloane,Dr.Marty,Samuel,Thomas Astle,Chinese man Chetqua and Wang A Tong,and others,as well as later Auguste Prevost,Robert Douglas,and Lionel Giles.It focuses on analyzing their finished catalogs such as"Sloan MS 3790C","Catalogue of Chinese Manuscripts described by M.Auguste Prevost","Catalogue of Chinese printed books,manuscripts and Drawings in the Library of the British Museum",and the Wade-Giles Catalog,and so on.We Analyzed the description content,classification characteristics,historical evolution,achievements and errors of various catalogs,discuss the value of catalogs,and propose prospects for future cataloging.Chapters 2 is a bibliography studies for rare Chinese books in British Library.Firstly,based on traditional Chinese Four Part Classification,we classified these books and counted the dynasties in which they were produced.Some Chinese books are selected,for have been published earlier or are relatively rare.Specific information has been recorded one by one,such as their titles,editions,authors,formats,main content,titles,sources,etc.For books that are lacking in domestic collections,emphasis is placed on elucidating their content,while for books that are in domestic collections,emphasis is placed on cataloging and identifying their version information,in an attempt to clearly reflect the bibliographic characteristics of each book.In this section of the discussion,extensive reference is made to existing research results,combined with one’s own experience in British Library.In addition,some studies in the paper have supplemented and improved the previous relevant conclusions of the academic community.Chapter 3 is various monographic studies for those collections.The first part is a study of Sun Xingyan(孙衍)’s criticism wrote on the Ming Dynasty’s carved version of Guangyun(广韵),after verifying the version and circulation of this book,the time when Sun Xingyan’s annotations were formed,and the content of Sun Xingyan’s annotations is to explore the original sound of ancient characters,the small phonology classification of the original sound of ancient characters,and the division of ancient phonology.The methods used are to determine ancient sounds through homophonic sounds,ancient book exegesis,and ancient rhyme writing.Based on this,Sun Xingyan gave highly praise to the book Guangyun.The second part is about the formation,circulation,and cultural value analysis of Foucquet’s collections in British Library.Most books of Foucquet’s collection are Ming dynasty editions,accounting for a significant proportion of Ming editions in British Library.This article explores the entire transport process of these books by Foucquet,which was formed in China,transported to France and Rome,and flowed out from the Ministry of Communications to England.Based on the materials,verification,and visual inspection,the collection of books from England that entered the collection on January 12 1844 is verified corresponding to Foucquet’s collection.The third part is the study on the only existing copy Xin Ke Quan Xiang Pi Ping Xi You Ji(新刻全像批评西游记).The volume,illustrations,annotations,and main text of this isolated Chinese book were proofread word for word with the Shi De Tang edition(世德堂本),Hiroshima edition(浅野文库丙本),Cabinet Library of Japan’ edition(内阁文库甲本),and Henan Library’s edition(河南省图书馆藏乙本).The similarities and differences were obtained,and it was determined that this edition was very precious,with its quality superior to A and B editions.The base edition should be an early print of Hiroshima edition,while belonging to the Hiroshima edition system.The layout of the main text has been extensively revised,and based on this,the publication time this version has been inferred.