Wáng Dìngbǎo 王定保 (870 – c. 941, possibly living to 954). Native place uncertain; his preface calls Wáng Pǔ 王溥 (later HòuZhōu chief minister) his cóngwēng (grand-uncle by lineage), establishing his clan affiliation. Son-in-law of the Hànlín scholar Wú Róng 吳融. Passed jìnshì of Guānghuà 3 (900); six years before Zhū Wēn’s deposition of the last Táng emperor. Caught south of the Yangtze by the chaos of the Táng-Five Dynasties transition, he was unable to return north and entered the secretariat of Liú Yǐn 劉隱 at Guǎngzhōu with the substantive post of Yōngguǎn xúnguān (Inspector of Yōngguǎn — modern Guǎngxī). He continued in the service of Liú Yǐn’s successors and of Liú Yǎn (founder of the Southern Hàn), reaching senior posts under the Southern-Hàn regime; the Wǔdài shǐ NánHàn shìjiā says he was still alive when Liú Yǎn took the imperial title (917).
His one surviving work is the KR3l0017 Táng zhāiyán 唐摭言 in 15 juàn, composed in old age — by the Sìkù reckoning at age 85 in 954 — as a retrospective on the Tang examination system and its culture. CBDB id 35070 records lifedates 870–941, with c_fl_earliest_year 816 (incorrect, perhaps a CBDB processing artefact) and c_fl_latest_year 928; modern scholarship sometimes places his death at 941, sometimes later (954 per the Sìkù reckoning). The Sìkù’s 954-composition date and the 941-death date are not formally reconcilable; the Sìkù compilers may have over-stretched the chronology, or Wáng Dìngbǎo may have lived to nearly 85.