Study On The Wang Pengfu Edition Of Book Of Documents

The Wang Pengfu edition of Book of Documents (Shang Shu) stored in the Taiwan’s National Library is one of the earliest editions of the book. Previous scholarship has paid little attention to this important edition. This thesis is the first comprehensive and intensive study of the Wang Pengfu edition of Book of Documents. Through comparing the edition with other editions, the author carries out an across-the-aboard research on the compilers, printing history, collectors, layout and textual characteristics, and academic value of the edition.The paper is composed of the preface and five chapters. In the preface the author introduces the previous studies, and highlights the significance of the topic, the research methods and the author’s findings and arguments.The first chapter consists of two parts. The first part is about the printing history of Book of Documents, in which the author briefly introduces the block-printed editions of Book of Documents. The second part focuses on the Wang Pengfu edition, discussing its edition characteristics, compilers and the time of printing.The author points out the mistakes made by former scholars about the printing time of the Wang Pengfu edition, arguing that the printing time of this block-printed edition was shortly after the second year of the reign of Chunxi(1175).The second part is a study on the collectors and transmission of the Wang Pengfu edition of Book of Documents. Through carefully studying the postscripts that book collectors wrote and their seals stemped on the edition, the article reveals a clear sequence of collectors of the Wang Pengfu edition for the first time.The third part is the most important part of the article, in which the author conducts a comprehensive study on the layout and textual differences between the Wang Pengfu edition and other editions of Book of Documents. After careful collation, this paper brings to light the characteristics of the Wang Pengfu edition, the previous editions it followed and its connections with other editions. Through comparisons with other editions, we found that the Wang Pengfu edition of Book of Documents might come from an edition with annotations and explanations (Zhu Shu Ben).The fourth part studies the annotations annexed to the text of Book of Documents. After comparing the annotations with the edition the Annotation of Classics (Jingdian Shiwen) printed in the Song and Yuan Dynasty, the author finds out the Characteristics and defects of the Wang Pengfu edition, and reveals the preliminary editorial style when the annotation of Classical was first annexed to the text the Book of Documents.The concluding part discusses the academic values of the Wang Pengfu edition of Book of Documents, including the value in the printing history, in the reception history of different editions of Confucian classics, in revealing the preliminary editorial style in the early days and in supplementing the incomplete text of The Annotation of Classics.