Niyudo [Ch.: Er you dong; Precious Books from the Cave] [or, from title label on...
73; 60 folding leaves (pagination in Vol. II continued from Vol. I). Two vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers (wrappers rather worn), orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers (frayed), new stitching. Kyoto: Hayashi Kuhei & Takemura Shinbei, 1699.
First edition of this valuable bibliography of Chinese encyclopedias or lei-shu (classified books); this is an important guide to the corpus of lei-shu.
The term “encyclopedia” is not used in the Western sense. Lei-shu “is the name given a genre of collectanea of literary and non-literary materials compiled in pre-modern Chinese history. Commonly translated ‘encyclopedia,’ lei-shu is more accurately rendered ‘classified book,’ from... More