Chinese Literary Classic to See Modern Light

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Chinese Literary Classic to See Modern Light

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The Beijing-based Commercial Press will photolithograph the Chinese literary classic "Siku Quanshu" (The Complete Library of the Four Branches of Literature) by the middle of next year, reported Wednesday's China Daily.

The publishing work will be based on the "Wen Jin Ge" edition of "Siku Quanshu", one of its three remaining completely reserved manuscript copies, said the English-language newspaper.

"Siku Quanshu", launched under the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-95) in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and organized by the literary emperor himself, took 15 years to accomplish.

By covering a wide range of knowledge and sorting out almost all of the significant works from various schools of thought throughout history, the imperial collection is one of the biggest volumes in terms of its sheer number ever compiled in China.

The copy of the manuscript Beijing will reprint is very much different in content with the work published in Taiwan, the paper quoted Ren Jiyu, curator of the National library of China where the "Wen Jin Ge" edition is kept, as saying.

Historical archives show that the "Wen Jin Ge" edition which Beijing will publish was corrected by Emperor Qianlong personally and Ji Yun, the prominent savant who presided over the project.

"Scholars from both sides of the Straits are still in the process of comparing the two versions. Up to now, the rate of discrepancy is about 50 percent." Ren was quoted as saying.

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