Zhāng Dú 張讀 (834 or 835 – c. 886; zì Shèngpéng 聖朋 per Chén Zhènsūn, or Shèngyòng 聖用 per the Xīn Táng shū Yìwén zhì — the Sìkù compilers note that the two graphs are easily confused and leave the question open), late-Táng scholar-official and author of the Xuānshì zhì 宣室志 KR3l0110, one of the three principal Táng zhìguài anthologies. He is the maternal grandson of 牛僧孺 Niú Sēngrú (780–848) — the Niú of the NiúLǐ 牛李 factional dispute and the author of the Xuánguài lù 玄怪錄 — and the son of Zhāng Yǒuxīn 張又新, the noted jìnshì prose-writer and Chá jīng commentator. Through these family connections Zhāng Dú stood at the intersection of the late-Táng’s two principal literary-philosophical currents — Niú’s Chán-Buddhist and Mao-shan-Daoist sympathies on one side and the Niú-faction guǎnbóu 觀僕 tradition on the other.
His career: passed the jìnshì in the Dàzhōng 大中 (847–860) or early Xiántōng 咸通 (860–874) period; held office as Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士 during Xiántōng; rose under Xīzōng 僖宗 to Lìbù shìláng 吏部侍郎 (the post under which the Xīn Táng shū Yìwén zhì registers him); also held Guózǐ jìjiǔ 國子祭酒 (Director of the Imperial Academy). The Jiànzhōng xī shǒu lù 建中西狩錄 in 10 juàn, registered in the Xīn Táng shū Yìwén zhì as also his, treats Xīzōng’s flight from Cháng’ān to Sìchuān before the Huáng Cháo 黃巢 rebellion (881–885) and is now lost except in fragments — confirming Zhāng’s role as a court-historian-witness through the high-Táng-collapse period. His death is conventionally placed in the Zhōnghé 中和 (881–885) or Guāngqǐ 光啟 (885–888) reign-periods. CBDB id 30979 (birthyear 834; the entry’s Tángdài rénwù zhī-shi bēisǔ citation gives “834 or 835 — c. Zhōnghé or a few years after”).
The Xuānshì zhì draws much of its Buddhist and Daoist material from contacts traceable to Niú Sēngrú’s monastic and Daoist circle; the work is therefore best read as a third-generation continuation of the Xuánguài lù tradition.