Coree

11191 — . 1 p.l. 4 25 34 29; 37 30 28 folding leaves. Six kwÅn in two volumes. Small folio 360 x 223 mm. orig. wrappers some wear & rubbing handwritten title on covers orig. stitching. HansÅng: Kyujanggak ca. 1799.<br /> <BR> <BR> A royal gift presented by the king of Korea. In 1794 King ChÅngjo 1752-1800 of the ChÅson dynasty compiled and had printed a collection of the letters of the great Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 1130-1200 to be disseminated throughout his kingdom. As King ChÅngjo wrote on this occasion “the learning of Master Zhu in its expansive and oceanic plentitude is best represented by his collected writings; the writings of Master Zhu in their utmost subtlety and precision are best represented by his personal correspondences†“ChusÅ paeksÅn yukkwÅn†朱書百é¸å…­å· in Hongjae chÅnsŠ弘齋全書 Collected Writings of King ChÅngjo kwÅn 180. Drawing from a number of established collections he selected 100 letters and carefully arranged them “beginning with the letter to Yanping 延平 i.e. Li Tong æŽä¾— 1093-1163 Zhu Xi’s teacher to pronounce his lineage of instruction and ending with the letter to Zhiqing ç›´å¿ i.e. Huang Gan 黃干 1152-1221 Zhu Xi’s disciple to demonstrate the bestowment of teachings.â€<br /> <BR> <BR> That 1794 edition with moderate marginal annotations on “personal and place names as well as philological glosses and references†was sent to be printed with the chÅngyuja ä¸é…‰å­— metal type cast in the year 1777. Printed copies were sent to various official printing houses throughout the kingdom and used as models to carve woodblocks for a xylographic edition ibid. Sometime around 1799 realizing that in the capital only metal type copies of the book remained the king ordered woodblocks to be made locally as well for the work so that more copies could be printed and distributed ChÅngjo “Sinin ogyÅng…†新å°äº”經… in Hongjae chÅnsÅ kwÅn 36.<br /> <BR> <BR> Most woodblock re-editions of this work retain the original title-page which contains not only the title Royal Edition of a Hundred Selected Letters of Zhu K. ÅŽjÅng chusÅ paeksÅn å¾¡å®šæœ±æ›¸ç™¾é¸ but also the inscription in seal script that reads ç”²å¯…å…§é–£æ´»å° â€” “palace edition printed with movable type in the kabin year 1794.†This title-page compounded with the absence of any additional paratextual information likely resulted in the description of these woodblock re-editions as the original metal type 1794 edition in spite of lacking the features of metal typography.<br /> <BR> <BR> We have carefully examined our copy and found that it was likely printed with the woodblocks carved around 1799 undoubtedly through the cannibalization of a typographic copy and kept within the royal library. Certain qualities of our copy make it distinctive: not only are the cursive characters rendered with impressive clarity the marginal annotations mentioned in King ChÅngjo’s edict are also preserved in faux-manuscript style — a feature absent in some other copies we have consulted erroneously described as the 1794 edition.<br /> <BR> <BR> The best evidence that our copy was printed by the royal library K. kyujanggak å¥Žç« é–£ of course is the fact that it was a royal gift K. naesabon 內賜本 presented by the king himself to notable officials or individuals in this case an examinee from SuwÅnbu 水原府. The “Record of Presentation†K. naesagi 內賜記 is handwritten on the front endpaper of the first volume as usual and is dated to the second month of Xianfeng 5 1855. However both the name of the recipient and the official responsible for the Record have been obscured. A name Im HÅ­i-ji 林熙之 is written next to the name of the recipient but in a clearly different hand and ink. Records of the Royal Secretariat K. SÅ­ngjÅngwÅn ilgi 承政院日記 states that on the 29th day of this month copies of the Hundred Selected Letters were indeed bestowed to six examinees but all their names are not given.<br /> <BR> <BR> On the first leaf of the table of contents and facing the title-page is the Seal of Presentation K. naesa’in å…§è³œå° which reads å¥Žç« ä¹‹å® Treasure of the Kyujanggak. This seal was used for presentation copies roughly between 1782 and 1894 as shown by Lee & Song in “A Study on Naesabon Preserved in Kyujanggak†in Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society 43 no. 2.<br /> <BR> <BR> This book is rare outside of East Asia. We find three copies under WorldCat 35891835 with a misspelled title and described as the 1794 edition on account of the aforementioned title-page which our copy also possesses. None of them is described as a presentation copy.<br /> <BR> <BR> Very good set. Some occasional soiling and dampstaining. Unimportant worming mostly marginal.<br /> <BR> <BR> ⧠King ChÅngjo Hongjae chÅnsŠ弘齋全書 in Han’guk munjip ch’onggan 韓國文集å¢åˆŠ digital access via krpia.co.kr. unknown