Collecting and Collectors in A Sea of Tales Past and Present

Abstract

Printed in 1544, Gujin shuohai 古今說海 (A Sea of Tales from Past and Present; hereafter GJSH), was a distinct example of the genre of congshu 叢書 (collectanea). Thirteen collators are listed, nine of whom are also noted for their contribution of texts from their own collections. They were all connected in kinship or officialdom to Lu Shen 陸深 (zi Ziyuan 子淵; 1477–1544), a renowned official, calligrapher, poet, and bibliophile of Songjiang 松江 (today’s Shanghai) whose family owned the Yanshan Academy 儼山書院 that published GJSH. This congshu therefore presents an exemplary case to study how book-collecting and private publishing in early sixteenth-century Songjiang enabled its local literati community to perform their cultural authority – alternative to officialdom – in collecting and curating the narrative space of heteroglossia drawn from a miscellany of sources, social registers, and paratexts.