Four random folding leaves in excellent facsimile of the Ming Yongle Dadian manuscript encyclopedia: juan...
Folio (473 x 290 mm.), “orig.” wrappers, “orig.” title label on upper cover, stitched as issued. N.d.: n.p. [but probably somewhere in China sometime in the last century].
The Yongle Encyclopedia [Yongle Dadian], the world’s largest encyclopedia, was completed in 1408 through the efforts of 2169 scholars working in the then capital of Nanking. It consisted of 22,877 manuscript fascicles (juan) and was bound in 11,095 volumes, with a total of about 370,000,000 characters. This manuscript was later lost in unknown circumstances but not before the Jiajing emperor (1507-67; r. 1521-67) had ordered a copy of the entire original manuscript... More