Leishu

The leishu (Chinese: 類書; lit. 'classified books') is a type of reference book historically compiled in China. It is often referred to as "encyclopedia", although the Chinese leishu are quite different from the modern notion of encyclopedia. They first appeared in the Cao Wei period (early third century AD), although the term leishu was first used during the Song dynasty.

In the later imperial China (Ming and Qing dynasties), emperors sponsored monumental projects to compile all known human knowledge into a single leishu, in which entire works, rather than excerpts, were copied and classified by category. The largest leishu ever compiled, on the order of the Yongle Emperor of Ming, was the Yongle Dadian, completed in 1408, containing a total of 370 million Chinese characters. It was, however, never printed as the imperial treasury had run out of money.

The Qinding Gujin Tushu Jicheng (Imperially approved synthesis of books and illustrations past and present) is by far the largest leishu to have been printed, containing 100 million characters and 852,408 pages. It was compiled by a team of scholars led by Chen Menglei, and printed between 1726 and 1728, during the Qing dynasty. According to Jean-Pierre Diény, the Jiaqing reign (1796–1820) saw the end of the publication of leishu.

Bibliography

• Lehner, Georg (10 May 2011). China in European Encyclopaedias, 1700-1850. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-20150-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wilkinson, Endymion Porter (2000). Chinese History: A Manual. Harvard Univ Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-00249-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)