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Mao Jin(1599-1659)is a renowned private book collector of the late Ming Dynasty. His outstanding achievements of a lifetime find expression in his Jigu Library Hall acquisition, his textual criticism of ancient books and his manuscript editing and block printing of them. Of these, The Jin Dai "Secret" Books is a collection of rare and extraordinary books encompassing all the Four Categories. And Xiaoxue ganzhu (a book about lesser learning by Wang Yinglin of the Sung Dynasty), Jindai shu (a book about local seasonal customs and activities by Hsiao tung of the Southern Dynasty of Liang) and Suihua jili (also about local seasonal customs and activities) were rare ancient books of very small circulation in Mao Jin’s time. They got to spread far and wide only after the publication of The Jin Dai "Secret" Books. Furthermore, when he compiled it for publication, Mao Jin laid special emphasis on the complete versions of its collection and prudently chose rare books and old editions for this purpose. Thus, The Jin Dai "Secret" Books represents, in a sense, the crown achievement of the Jigu Library Hall block-printed editions. It is far more valuable than what was published by booksellers of Mao Chin’s time and is no less than the icon of series of higher quality in the Ming Dynasty. This thesis focuses on two main themes: related literature on Mao Jin’s compilation of The Jin Dai "Secret" Books and a selected analysis of its collection. It consists of six chapters: Chapter 1 “Introduction” first explains the purpose of this thesis, then summarizes the results of previous studies and goes on to illustrate the scope and methodology of the research. Chapter 2 “The Story of Mao Jin’s Life, His Associations and His Achievements in Book Collection and Printing” tells the story of Mao’s life and illustrates his important associations as a lead for the understanding of the background to his career in book collection and publishing and his achievements in these fields. Chapter 3 “The Compilation of The Jin Dai "Secret" Books” examines the background to its compilation, the format in its compilation and printing, how the books were collected, special features of its layout and the circulation of the edition and its impact. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 “A Selected Version Analysis of the Collection of The Jin Dai "Secret" Books (Part I &Part II, respectively)” look into certain titles included in The Jin Dai "Secret" Books with an aim to sort out the origins of their versions while conducting some textual criticism of them in comparison with other existing important series editions to check their quality and judge the value of their versions. In question are Za jia (the Miscellaneous schools), Lei shu (Encyclopedias) and Xiao shuo jia (Story tellers) under the Category of Zi (Masters or Philosophers), as well as Bie ji (Individual collections) under the Category of Ji (Collections). Chapter 6 “Conclusion” makes a summary of the features, value and drawbacks of The Jin Dai "Secret" Books and gives it a fair integral evaluation to highlight its value as literature and its academic standing, based on the results of this research.
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