Research On The Ancient And Modern Unofficial History And Novels Compiled In It

Ancient and Modern Unofficial History is a series of books compiled by Wu Guan in Wan Li era of the Ming Dynasty. It contains fifty-five kinds of ancient books, two hundred and forty-four volumes. Hitherto this series has been discussed fragmentally in several books and dissertations. But there is still no systematic research on it. In this paper, we implemented entirely research and discussion on the versions and contents of Ancient and Modern Unofficial History and its compiler Wu Guan.Ancient and Modern Unofficial History’s birth has great relationship with its social environment. The stable society and the strong border defense in Wan Li era provided a good political condition; The development of commodity economy, emergence of capitalism and the progress of printing provided the necessary economic conditions and technical support; The great atmosphere of collection in the Ming Dynasty provided cultural soil for its birth; Wu Guan lived in the geographical circle of Hui Zhou culture, which provided geographical advantages; Wu Guan himself was a publisher, which provided more special facilities.Ancient and Modern Unofficial History contains a total collection of19novels and the versions are many and complex for the most part. Almost all of these works were recorded by later collections, which showed the value of the novels included and its later recognition.The novels recorded by Ancient and Modern Unofficial History are mostly not recorded by other collections compiled in the same period. Among the novels included, the Han and Wei fiction has a higher proportion than the Tang and Song legend. The reason should be that the Tang legend is meandering while the Han and Wei fiction is simple, rustic and realistic, the latter fits Wu Guan’s purpose of "supplement to history" better.There are always many academic divergences on the value of the Ancient and Modern Unofficial History. Some scholars represented by Lu Xun consider it of little value. Some others find its great value when used to correct the ancient classics, and the hope that scholars can realize this. This paper studied from the literature reservation value, novel dissemination value and collation value of Ancient and Modern Unofficial History, and affirmed its value in the protection, dissemination and collation of ancient books by offering specific examples.Ancient and Modern Unofficial History is neither a pioneering nor distinguishing, but its special perspective of Wan Li era makes it unique and valuable. It has been a positive role in novel dissemination and ancient books collation, so it deserves the concern of scholars.