Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/352

Rh Chung-yung 忠勇, and burial with the rites of a Chün-wang or a prince of the second degree.

[4/118/24a; see bibliography for .]

2em

 HUANG Li-chou. See under.

 HUANG P'ei-lieh 黃丕烈, June 21, 1763–1825, Sept., bibliophile, was a native of Ch'ang-chou (Soochow). He was a chü-jên of 1788. After failing several times in the higher examinations, he ceased to compete, and in 1801 applied for an official post. He qualified for a position as magistrate in Chihli, but declined, preferring to obtain by purchase the higher rank of a secretary of a Board in the Central Government. Nevertheless, he did not serve in that capacity and soon retired to his home district.

Unsuccessful in official life, Huang pursued the career of a bibliophile, a printer, and a bookseller. As early as 1789 he became interested in collecting rare books and manuscripts. At this time there was an active interest in book collecting, stimulated perhaps by the compilation of the Ssŭ-k'u ch'üan-shu (see under ). As Soochow was then a center of the book trade, Huang was able to accumulate a large collection of rare editions by purchase, by exchange, or by copying from the libraries of his friends. For some time, beginning about the year 1794, he employed to assist him in collating and discriminating among rare editions. Early in 1803 he moved to a new house in Soochow where he stored his Sung editions in a studio which he styled Po-Sung i-ch'an 百宋一廛 "Hundred Sung [prints in] One House." In the same year he compiled a catalogue of these Sung editions, entitled Po-Sung i-ch'an shu-lu (書錄), an incomplete copy of which was reprinted in the Shih-yüan ts'ung-shu (see under ). Late in 1804 Ku Kuang-ch'i wrote a long poem, in the form of a fu 賦, about this studio and about its 109 Sung editions. Huang himself annotated this poem and printed it in 1805 under the title Po-Sung i-ch'an fu, with the explanation that other Sung editions had been added to his collection after the poem was written. In fact his catalogue of Sung editions, compiled in 1812, shows that he had in that year 187 titles in his possession, excluding those he had sold in the meantime. This catalogue, entitled 求古居宋本書目 Ch'iu-ku chü Sung-pên shu-mu, was printed by Yeh Tê-hui (see under ) in 1918. Huang was so fond of Sung prints that he styled himself Ning-Sung chu-jên 佞宋主人 "A Collector Biased in favor of Sung Editions." At the same time he collected other rare works of the Yüan period, manuscripts made by, etc., but unfortunately there exists no complete catalogue of Huang P'ei-lieh's library. A book which contains his seals or colophons is now treasured by collectors, and of such the Kuo-hsüeh Library, Nanking, is known to possess twenty-six titles, including six with collation notes in his handwriting.

Huang P'ei-lieh selected from his library a number of rare works which he reprinted in facsimile, beginning about the year 1800. About that time he reproduced the Chi-ku ko pi-pên shu-mu (see under ), and an edition of the 國語 Kuo-yü which appeared originally in the years 1023–33 A.D. These two reprints, and seventeen others, appeared under the collective title 士禮居黃氏叢書 Shih-li chü Huang-shih ts'ung-shu, the last work of the series appearing in 1824. This collectanea is prized by scholars for the rarity of its contents, for the faithfulness of its reproductions, and for the collation notes which Huang made when he compared his reprints with other editions. Listed under Huang's name in the collectanea is the 汪本隸釋刊誤 Wang-pên Li-shih k'an-wu, 1 chüan, being corrections to a 1777 edition of a collection, chiefly of Han inscriptions, assembled by Hung K'uo (see under ), and first printed in 1167, but later supplemented. The corrections were chiefly the work of Ku Kuang-ch'i. In the same ts'ung-shu is a collection of poems by Huang or his friends, entitled 同人唱和詩 T'ung-jên ch'ang-ho shih, including the Chuang-yüan hui ch'ang-ho shih (see under ). There are about ten other works, not in the above collectanea, whose printing is known to have been undertaken by Huang—two or three being from his own library, the rest having been entrusted to him by others.

Huang P'ei-lieh made bibliographical notations in many books—not only in those which he himself owned, but in those which he borrowed from friends. Even in his own time such annotated books were prized by collectors, not merely for the distinction these notes lent to them, but for the bibliographical information they afforded. Such information about the history and the technical aspects of bibliography Huang acquired only after many years of

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