Search Results: Authors starting with Q from Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller, Inc.

with yu lu 餘錄 [further records] in the supplement. 20 & 3 juan in six vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers (lower wrapper of final vol. torn), new stitching. [China]: 1806. First edition of this collection of scholarly notes or "jottings" (biji 筆記) by one of the leading Chinese intellectuals of the 18th century, Qian Daxin (1728-1804). "The gentleman says: Learning must never stop." Thus reads the first sentence in the ancient philosophical work Xunzi. Further on, the philosopher expounds on what great things can be achieved by going about them little by little: "Let the horse Qi Ji [famous for its reach] take a single leap; / It still would go no farther than ten strides; | Yet old nags ridden ten days [shi jia 十駕] equal him; / Not giving up is where success resides." The title of Qian's book is a reference to these lines. The occupant of the "Studio of 'Riding for Ten Days'" assembles his evidence slowly, piecing together a solid edifice of learning. This meticulous assemblage served to… Read More

Edited by Qingzeng Qian. 20 parts & three Addenda in eight vols. 8vo, later wrappers, new stitching. Hangzhou: Zhejiang shu ju, 1876. An early edition (1st ed.: Shanghai, 1804), of one of the author's most important and representative works, posthumously edited by his son, Qian Qingzeng (active 19th century). The polymath Qian Daxin 錢大昕 (1728-1804), was a Qing Dynasty scholar-official, historian, and linguist; he served as commissioner of education and examinations in Guangdong Province. Qian devoted most of his energy to historical studies, although his learning in the Confucian classics was also profound. Qian's scholarship was notable for its precision and breadth. He excelled most other historians of his time not only in applying evidential-research methodology, already highly developed in classical studies, to historiography, but also in using a wide knowledge of such subjects as mathematics, astronomy, and calendars in his historical enquiries...[in this work] he delved into various… Read More

Ten vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers, orig. stitching. [China]: Saoye shanfang 掃葉山房, [1798]. An edition of an abridgment of the History of the Song, with additions by the author. These additions provide a certain amount of information not found in the standard histories, but Qian's work has been criticized by some for lacking in detail (Lao, Zhonghua yeshi cidian, 315). Qian Shisheng (1575-1652), served as a compiler in the Hanlin Academy and later held other posts in the government in the Ming southern capital of Nanjing. Our edition was probably published as part of Song, Liao, Jin, Yuan si shi 宋遼金元四史 [Four Historiographical Works on the Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan], but it does not have a title-page. The corporate entity of the publisher of our edition, Saoye shanfang, or the "Mountain dwelling of sweeping leaves," issued this series (Zhou, Tushuguan xue qingbao xue cidian, 370). Our work was published by Xi Shichen 席世臣 (b. ca. 1756, d. before 1814), who by some accounts… Read More

47 juan & two vols. of index in 25 vols. 8vo, orig. wrappers (some light browning throughout). [China]: after 1760. An early edition, first printed in 1751, of this selection of poetry by eight famous writers from the Tang (618-907 CE) and (Northern and Southern) Song (960-1279 CE) periods. Nominally the collection was made by the Qianlong emperor, who was himself a productive poet. If one goes by the number of poems published in Qianlong's name, the emperor "was by far the most prolific poet in Chinese history" (he published more than 42,000 pieces)" (Fang Chao-ying, "Hung-Li," 371). Those poems probably were not all his creation, however; the man had an empire to run. Similarly, this collection of the poetry of earlier masters probably owed a lot to Grand Secretary Liang Shizheng 梁詩正 (1697-1763), minister of the Board of Personnel, who headed the team of compilers. The woodblock printing reproduces the original calligraphy of the "imperial brush," however. The poets in the collection… Read More

Eight vols. 8vo, later wrappers, orig. block-printed title labels on upper covers, new stitching, heads & tails of spines covered in blue silk (a few worn). [China]: Preface dated 1758. A commentary, nominally by the Qianlong emperor (1711-99, reigned 1735-96), of the Spring and Autumn Annals, one of the Confucian classics. The commentary rejects a previously current interpretation of the Annals in favor of a reading favorable to the Manchu monarchy. The Spring and Autumn Annals is a very terse and apparently entirely documentary account of events involving the state of Lu in Chinese antiquity. It covers the period 722-481 BCE. The importance of the text in the Chinese intellectual tradition stems from its association with Confucius, who was from Lu (in present-day Shandong) and was said to have written the chronicle. Several commentaries were written to the chronicle or associated with it, and later scholars produced their own editions that used these commentaries selectively. One such version… Read More

Many finely drawn illustrations in brush, ink, & colors. Scroll (285 x 9310 mm.), 23 joined sheets (some inoffensive worming, carefully repaired). Japan: copied before 1857. A finely illustrated scroll, created in the witty and refined realistic style of Yamato-e and Ukiyo-e brush work, depicting the route taken - a distance of about 4 km. - by pleasure-seekers from Ryogoku Bridge to Shin Yoshiwara, the center of prostitution in the city of Edo. By the 18th century, it was the home to some 1750 women. This was an extremely busy section with a strong commercial tradition in what is today's central Tokyo. Our scroll is an early copy of the original scroll; we do not know if that earlier scroll still exists. It was created by Bunyo Tozaka (1783-1852), a prominent Nanga-style artist who studied with Buncho Tani and specialized in kachoga (pictures of flowers and butterflies). The author of the notes was Hirokata Yashiro (1758-1841), the influential historian of Japan and great book collector (he had… Read More