Item ID: 8520 Shi zi quanshu 十子全書 [Complete Books of the Ten Masters]. Zixing 王子興 WANG, ed.

The Complete Books of the Ten Masters

Shi zi quanshu 十子全書 [Complete Books of the Ten Masters].

35 vols. Large 8vo, orig. wrappers (slightly browned throughout), old stitching (stitching partially loose). [China]: Bao qing jing lun tang, ca. 1810-50.

A collectanea of ten of the books whose authors Chinese bibliographers later classified as “masters” or “philosophers” (zi). The books date from Chinese antiquity to the middle period and some are very well known, others less so. The collection comprises:

—The Daoist works Laozi (Lao-tzu), Zhuangzi, the more problematic — partially hedonist, possibly partially forged or corrupted — Liezi, and the much lesser known Heguanzi (the “pheasant cap master”);

Xunzi, by the iconoclastic Confucian, notorious for his doctrine that human nature is innately bad;

—the voluminous and varied politico-philosophical Guanzi, famous for its wealth of material on early Chinese economic thought;

—the legalistic work on state power Hanfeizi;

Huainanzi, a collection of debates from King Liu An’s court in the second century BCE;

—Yang Xiong’s (53 BCE-18 CE) collection of aphorisms known as Fayan and here titled Yangzi; and

Wenzhongzi, also known as Zhong shuo, Wang Tong’s (584-617 CE) discussions with his students.

The texts include commentaries both in double-column format and printed in the upper margin, as well as prefaces. Some texts have printed punctuation marks to aid the reader. Prefaces and commentaries include texts by scholars from the Ming period as well as the Qing. Some are very famous, e.g., Wang Shizhen 王世貞 (1526-90), a Ming official and writer.

This collection, edited by Wang Zixing 王子興, was first published in 1804. Our edition has a preface by Huang Pilie 黃丕烈, dated July 1807 (Jiaqing dingmao, sixth month).

A very good set. A few wrappers frayed or defective.

❧ Our set corresponds in the number of volumes to the set once owned by Tokugawa Yoshinao (Hosa Library) and now part of the Nagoya City Museum.

Price: $4,950.00

Item ID: 8520

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