Zhejiang Ming Dynasty Carved Bibliophile Book Transcription Dynasty

Being the Golden times of woodblock printing, the Ming Dynasty has witnessed the most prosperous and numerous book-carving activities. And Zhejiang was one of the book-carving centers, where private book carving and copying activities enjoyed great fame in addition to the government and workshops. With the prosperous development of culture and private book collection in Zhejiang, to increase the quantity, some bibliophiles desperately searched, carved, copied and spread a number of rare and valuable books, and even recopied woodblocks if affordable, which makes great contributions to the conservation and circulation of ancient books. Among them, the most valuable and influential ones are Gao Chengyan’s Jigu Hall Series, Hu Wenhuan’s Gezhi Seires, Zang Maoxun’s Yuan Reverse and Hongpian’s Play of Song Yuan Ming.In addition their books most bibliophiles also copying activity in order to increase the collection of variety and quantity.As for book copying methods, book collectors either hired hands outside or used their own secretaries, but mostly bibliophiles copied books on their own, and Qi Chengye in the late Ming Dynasty is one of the representatives, who was appraised by Quan Zuwang as "The amount was so large as unprecedented, the amendment was so careful even with no stain on the paper." By collecting and copying books, bibliophiles have made considerable contributions to the augment of literature and. As important parts of ancient books, the block-printed edition and transcripts flourished local and national culture.Focusing on bibliophiles’ book carving and copying activities in ZheJiang in the Ming Dynasty, the paper divides into three chapters. First chapter introduces the book collectors’ copy activity in ZheJiang in the Ming Dynasty. Firstly, it describes the phenomenon of the book collectors copy activity and the background which is further discussed from the perspective of social-economy and cultural origin respectively. Secondly, it introduces bibliophiles by using tables to show the copying situation of the main collectors. In spite of the abundance of the carving and copying books, the paper is mainly based on The Chinese Rare Books, Record of Carving Books in the Ming Dynasty and some collection directory, bibliographic collection such as legend, fiction in the Ming and Qing dynasties and makes a systematic table, leaving the original editions to be further discovered. The second chapter investigates bibliophile’s carving activity in ZheJiang in the Ming Dynasty. The first part retraces bibliophile’s carving reasons and purposes. To increase additional collection, carving books is bibliophile’s first choice. Bibliophiles also wanted to spread culture and their own works and chose to carve books, which helped them pass on their learning, form friendship and promote culture. The second part explains bibliophiles’ unique characters in carving works. Carving series of books, novels dramas and poetry helped to save rare books and carry forward the culture of the times. They highly valued selecting and amendment, which has far-reaching impact to future generations. The last part deals with the influence to later generations of bibliophiles’ carving activity and their understanding.The third chapter searches copying activity in ZheJiang in the Ming Dynasty, which also divides into three parts. The first part retraces bibliophile’s copying reasons and purpose. Due to various constraints, many collectors wanted to home desired books and so turned to transcribe them. Due to the facts that collectors paid more attention to the past than to the present and that collectors cherished rare ones, there is more chance to save books and less possibility to lose them, which accommodates reading and contributes to cultural inheriting. The second part examines content, sources, methods and characteristics of the transcripts. The third part dissects the far-reaching impact to ancient books spreading and cultural inheritance.