A “Significant Achievement”

MO, Youzhi.

Lüting zhi jian chuan ben shu mu [List of Surviving Editions Known to & Seen by Me].

16 juan in six vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, stitched as issued. [Shanghai]: from the pillar: “Guo xue fu lun she,” n.d. [but ca. 1912-30].

Mo (1811-71), was a bibliographer, bibliophile, poet, and calligrapher. His affiliation with the publishing house Jinling Shuju (later Jiangnan Shuju) caused him to travel widely in southeast China, where he visited many libraries and collectors and did much bibliographical research.

He wrote three notable bibliographies: the present work is a classified list of the books Mo saw during his travels, with notes on the authors, contents, and editions. The first edition was published in Beijing in 1909. Lianbin Dai, in his “China’s Bibliographic Tradition and the History of the Book” in Book History, Vol. 17 (2014), considers this work to be a “significant achievement” (p. 21); it concentrates on editions printed before 1800 included in the Siku Quanshu zongmu tiyao [Annotated Catalogue of the Complete Imperial Library], the largest pre-modern Chinese book catalogue.

The contents of our bibliography are arranged by subject. Entries include titles, number of volumes, authorship, editors, publishers, dates of publication, editions, references and comments, etc.

Fine set, preserved in a hantao. Minor browning throughout.

Price: $3,950.00

Item ID: 7817