Historiography

QIAN, Daxin.

Shi jia zhai yang xin lu [Record of Cultivating New Knowledge in the Shijia Study].

Edited by Qingzeng Qian. 20 parts & three Addenda in eight vols. 8vo, later wrappers, new stitching. Hangzhou: Zhejiang shu ju, 1876.

An early edition (1st ed.: Shanghai, 1804), of one of the author’s most important and representative works, posthumously edited by his son, Qingzeng Qian (active 19th century). The polymath Daxin Qian (1728-1804), was a Qing Dynasty scholar-official, historian, and linguist; he served as commissioner of education and examinations in Guangdong Province.

“Qian devoted most of his energy to historical studies, although his learning in the Confucian classics was also profound. Qian’s scholarship was notable for its precision and breadth. He excelled most other historians of his time not only in applying evidential-research methodology, already highly developed in classical studies, to historiography, but also in using a wide knowledge of such subjects as mathematics, astronomy, and calendars in his historical enquiries…[in this work] he delved into various aspects of the histories and classics; he also undertook textual criticism and topical research and made occasional moral judgments.”–D.R. Woolf, ed., A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing, II, pp. 751-52.

Qian’s main concerns as a historian were Confucian classical studies, history, bibliography, phonology, etymology, the calendar, astronomy, mathematics, history of the Yuan Dynasty, etc.

Fine fresh set.

Price: $4,000.00

Item ID: 7044