Quán Zàizhī wénjí 權載之文集
Collected Works of Quán Zài-zhī (Quán Dé-yú) by 權德輿 (撰), 姜殿揚 (輯校補)
About the work
Quán Zàizhī wénjí 權載之文集 in 50 juǎn is the complete original edition of Quán Déyú’s 權德輿 collected works — the 50-juǎn recension assembled at the poet’s death by his grandson Quán Xiàn 權憲 with a preface by Yáng Sìfù 楊嗣復 (ca. 820), in contrast to the truncated 10-juǎn WYG version (= KR4c0040) recovered by Yáng Shèn 楊慎 in Yúnnán in 1541 from a partial witness. The complete 50-juǎn MS — long thought lost — was recovered in the late Qing through a remarkable tracing exercise narrated in the SBCK preface: Péng Yuánruì 彭元瑞 wrote to Ruǎn Yuán 阮元 asking the Zhībùzúzhāi 知不足齋 Bào Tíngbó 鮑廷博 about it; Bào did not have it but heard Zhū Yún 朱筠’s family did; Zhū’s nephew Zhū Xīgēng 朱錫庚 confirmed it but kept the manuscript private. The trace led to a chain of bookseller transactions back to a manuscript that ended in the SBCK editor Jiāng Diànyáng 姜殿揚’s 民國 (Republican-era) edition.
Tiyao
No tíyào in source. The KR4c0041 file is the SBCK base, which preserves the substantial late-Qing / Republican-era preface narrating the manuscript’s recovery, but no Sìkù tíyào (the Sìkù compilers had only the truncated 10-juǎn Yáng Shèn text — i.e. KR4c0040).
Abstract
This is the principal complete witness of Quán Déyú’s literary corpus and the version that any serious modern scholar of Quán would consult. The 50 juǎn are: 10 juǎn of shī and fù (matching the WYG 10-juǎn version); 40 juǎn of prose — zhìgào (drafted memoranda), biǎo, zhuàng, qǐ, xù prefaces (substantial volume — Quán was the leading mid-Tang literary patron and produced xù for nearly every major contemporary), bēimíng and mùzhìmíng (8 juǎn — Quán was an unusually prolific bēi author), yìlùn (essays, 2 juǎn), jì (records, 2 juǎn), cè wèn (examination questions, 1 juǎn), shū (letters, 2 juǎn), shūbiǎo zhuàng (5 juǎn), and jì wén (funerary, 3 juǎn).
The recovery story preserved in the SBCK preface is itself a remarkable Qīng-bibliographical document. Wáng Shìzhēn 王士禛 (Yúyáng 漁洋) had seen a 50-juǎn copy belonging to Gù Chén 顧宸 of Wúxī, copied for him by Liú Tǐrén’s 劉體仁 son, and recorded the figure in his Jūyì lù 居易録. The Sìkù compilers in the 1770s could find no surviving 50-juǎn witness and could only print Yáng Shèn’s 10-juǎn recovery. The hunt that recovered the complete text in the late Qīng — Péng Yuánruì → Ruǎn Yuán → Bào Tíngbó → Zhū Yún → Zhū Xīgēng → Wǔliǔjū bookseller → original-source — gives a vivid glimpse of late-Qīng manuscript circulation.
For Quán Déyú’s biography, see the person note 權德輿; for the truncated WYG version see KR4c0040. The principal modern critical edition (Yáng Lìmíng 楊立明, Quán Déyú jí jiàozhù, 2005) builds on this 50-juǎn SBCK text rather than on the WYG.
Translations and research
- See KR4c0040 for general references on Quán Dé-yú.
- Yáng Lì-míng 楊立明, ed. 2005. Quán Dé-yú jí jiào-zhù 權德輿集校注. Modern critical edition.
- David L. McMullen. 1988. State and Scholars in T’ang China. CUP.
Other points of interest
The SBCK 50-juǎn recovery preface — narrating the chain of bibliographic detective-work from Péng Yuánruì through to the manuscript’s eventual emergence — is one of the principal Republican-era documents of Tang biéjí manuscript history; it shows how late-Qīng / Mínguó private collectors compensated for the gaps in the Sìkù program through informal scholarly networks.
Links
- See KR4c0040 for the parallel truncated WYG version.
- Quan Deyu (Wikipedia)