Yuè Kē 岳珂
Style name Sùzhī 肅之; sobriquet Juànwēng 倦翁 (“the Weary Old Man”). Born 1183, died c. 1242 (the Sòng shǐ records his last datable activity in 1241). Native of Tāngyīn 湯陰 in Xiāngzhōu 相州 (modern Hénán); the family was already settled in Hángzhōu by Yuè Kē’s generation. Grandson of the great Southern-Sòng general Yuè Fēi 岳飛 (1103–1142), through Yuè Fēi’s third son Yuè Lín 岳霖.
Held a series of senior posts in the Southern-Sòng court: Hùbùshàngshū 戶部尚書 (Minister of Revenue), Tàizǐ tàibǎo 太子太保 (Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince), and Tàishī 太師. As an ally of the chief councillor Shǐ Míyuǎn 史彌遠 he was implicated in some of the Lízōng 理宗 era’s controversies; his Sòng shǐ biography is in juan 380.
Yuè Kē is principally remembered today as a book-collector, calligrapher, and editor of remarkable depth. He oversaw the recutting of the Nine Classics — the famous Xiāngtāi 相臺 (“Mausoleum-Terrace”) edition — at his Hángzhōu villa, named after Yuè Fēi’s tomb. The Xiāngtāi Nine Classics was one of the most authoritative Southern-Sòng classical re-editions, distinguished by its scholarly collation against Jīngjiā 京家 (Kāifēng), Hángzhōu, Jiànyáng 建陽, and Shǔ exemplars. As paratexts to the Chūnqiū in this print, Yuè Kē appended (with substantial editorial corrections) the Chūnqiū mínghào guī yī tú of Féng Jìxiān 馮繼先 KR1e0016 and the anonymous Chūnqiū nián biǎo KR1e0017. His editorial protocol — preserved in the surviving Diāo yìn Xiāngtāi jiǔjīng lì 雕印相臺九經例 quoted in the Sìkù tíyào on KR1e0016 — is one of the most precise surviving statements of Sòng-period editorial method.
He also produced a series of important antiquarian and collectors’ compilations: Chéng zhāi luán liè 程齋鸞列 (a study of the Northern-Sòng calligrapher Lǐ Jiànzhōng 李建中); Chéng zhāi pǐn 程齋品 (essays on calligraphy and painting); and the celebrated Bǎo zhēnzhāi fǎ shū zàn 寶眞齋法書贊 (rhymed inscriptions on calligraphic masterpieces in his collection, 28 juan). His historiographical works include Tíng shǐ 桯史 (informal historical notes, 15 juan) and Yù chǔ xīn yì 玉楮新意.
CBDB id 10759. The Yuè family fortune from imperial reparations after Yuè Fēi’s posthumous rehabilitation in 1162 funded Yuè Kē’s substantial book-collecting and printing activities.