Item ID: 7842 Zeng guang shi yun quan bi 增廣詩韻全璧 [Enlarged Complete Jade Disks of the Rhymes of Poetry or Enlarged Rhyming Dictionary for Writing Poetry]. ANON.

ANON.

Zeng guang shi yun quan bi 增廣詩韻全璧 [Enlarged Complete Jade Disks of the Rhymes of Poetry or Enlarged Rhyming Dictionary for Writing Poetry].

127; 140; 104 folding leaves. Five juan & two addenda in three vols. Small 8vo, orig. printed wrappers, orig. stitching. Shanghai: Hong bao zhai shu ju, 1920.

This is an enlarged (zengguang) edition of Shiyun hebi 詩韻合璧 [Combined Jade Disks of the Rhymes of Poetry], first published in 1884. The enlarged edition has a preface dated 1890.

Both editions are representative of an important trend in late imperial Chinese publishing, in which the complexities of the Chinese written language and its literary forms were made more accessible through compendia and reference works. The “combined jade disks” of its title was a metaphor that here referred to dividing up the printed area into several panels, so that several pieces of text could run simultaneously across the pages. The original featured three panels on one page; in this edition it has been enlarged to five. Each panel contains text from a different work useful for the student of poetic composition. In an indication of the commercial nature of these publications, “combined jade disks” has become “complete jade disks” (quanbi) in the expanded edition to which this copy belongs, further highlighting the work’s comprehensive character.

Mao Zedong — who wrote classical Chinese verse and valued its established rules — owned a copy of this edition of the book. His multicolored annotations and punctuation of the entire text suggest the importance of this book for Mao’s poetic training.

Fine set, preserved in a hantao.

References

Lin Jianhuang. “Bolan shishu de Mao Zedong” [“Mao Zedong, Avid Reader of Books on Poetics”], Fujian dangshi yuekan, No. 11 (2002), pp. 18-19.