Popular Novels in the Collection of Ch’ien Tseng

Abstract

Among the famous collectors of rare printed books in the time of the Manchu dynasty the foremost place belongs to Ch’ien Tseng (1). Ch’ien Tseng was born in 1629 (2) and according to the last entry in his catalogue, was still alive in 1699 (3), being at that time 71 years old. It seems that he died not long afterwards, in 1701. He owned one of the best collections of old books in his time and his extraordinary knowledge of Chinese books was embodied in his work Ch’ien Tsun-wang tu-shu min-ch’iu chiao-cheng (E1) which remains a highly esteemed handbook for Chinese librarians even to-day. From the last period of his life a catalogue of his library has been preserved, the so-called Yeh-shih-yüan shu-mu (E9)Yeh-shih-yüan was the name of his study. This catalogue is one of the most important sources for the history of the short story and the novel written in the spoken language. Ch’ien Tseng succeeded in collecting for his library a number of rare examples of these genres which have since either been completely lost or are preserved only in late and often much altered versions.

Ar Or 10 (1938), pp. 281–294.