The Collation of Three Versions of Front Annotations of the Siku Quanshu: Based on 365 Pieces of Front Annotations

• Main Author: Wen-Chin Lan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Taiwan University 2015-06-01
• Series: Journal of Library and Information Studies
• Subjects: siku quanshu; siku quanshu zongmu; tiyao; bibliographic annotation; wenyuange; wensuge; wenjinge; text collation
• Online Access: https://jlis.lis.ntu.edu.tw/files/journal/j40-3.pdf
• ISSN: 1606-7509; 1606-7509

A bibliographic annotation (tiyao提要) is a brief description of the author and content of a bookas well as a comment on, or a critique of, the book. The Siku Quanshu Zongmu (四庫全書總目) has long been viewed as a model of the traditional Chinese annotated bibliography and its bibliographic annotations have been praised by many scholars. It is suggested that these annotations can be used as examples for learning how to write bibliographic annotations. The compilation of the Siku Quanshu Zongmu went through three stages: (1) individual draft annotations (分纂稿) written by various scholars, (2) front annotations (書前提要) revised andmodified by the officials of the Siku Quanshu Project, and (3) finalized annotations (總目提要)mainly edited and compiled by Ji Yun (紀昀). Initially, the Siku Quanshu had seven written copies and there were seven sets of front annotations. They were housed separately in the seven chambers that Qianlong Emperor (乾隆, r. 1736-1795) built to store the Siku Quanshu. Currently, only three of the seven sets are intact and extant, including Wenyuange (文淵閣), Wensuge (文溯閣), and Wenjinge (文津閣). This study attempts to conduct a collation project of the three versions of front annotations. We chose 365 pieces of front annotations from the aforementioned three sets, respectively. The result scorroborate that there exist variations and differences among the three sets of front annotations. This paper presents three examples to illustrate how the collation task was done. Since these annotations were transcribed manually, it is quite common to notice that the three sets might use variant forms for the same character. The descriptions of author, title, or number of volumes might be different as well. In particular, the annotation for the same book might be different slightly or significantly among the three sets. This paper is a summary report of the preliminary findings of the collation task. (Article content in Chinese with English extended abstract)