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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 12, 2005 14:49:20 GMT
Well, thought I'll start.
Today, I just recieved my Kangxi Dictionary! ;D
It is a second-hand copy, originally published in Shanghai in 1921. It is Chinese stitched bound in the traditional style. 60 ce (volumes) in 4 han (cases). Pocket edition, the size of the individual volumes is 15 X 9.5 cm.
The previous owner didn't look after it very well, though he / she used it a lot. A lot of wear to the covers, especially the title tags. Stains on some pages, the cases are rather worn, with some of the belts nearly breaking. The thing that really pissed me off was that he / she used a ball point pen / fountain pen to pen in comments and aids to the inside of the case as well as the pages for some of the volumes, which will be difficult to remove. Thank god he used pencil for most of the comments which I can carefully rub out. I can also repair some bits and pieces, and cover the writing on the cases using xuan paper, etc. Though I can only restore it to a certain extent. He / she cut off the top section of the title page (which had something writen on due to the ink marks on the next page). Might have to re-line the cloth case with brocade one since it is sagging. I'll have to leave the covers alone, since I do not have experience in replacing them with new ones, best not to mess with.
But overall, it is a lovely piece of work, and highly usable!
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Post by calden on Jul 12, 2005 17:48:00 GMT
CCC:
Very cool book. I love old books. Take it to an old book specialist who knows what kind of glue and paper to use to repair and restore it. (Maybe you already know all this yourself.)
When my father died I inherited an old family bible that had been given to my great-great grandfather when he was married - 1825. This huge book was printed on totally acid-free hemp paper so the pages were not at all yellow or brittle. However the old leather cover was almost totally disintegrated. I did some research and found a specialist in old book repair. It cost me $150 but was worth triple the amount. The new cover and binding isn't EXACTLY what the original was, but is a period reconstruction and could have been an appropriate replacement at the time. He even photocopied the swirly colored rainbow pattern on the inside of the cover and used it to line the new cover so even that looks like it was. The edition is now readable and intact and protected for another 175 years at least. It's soooo cool to see the handwritten names of my ancestors on the personal information pages. Just imagine - his hand rested on that page while holding a quill pen writing down the name of his new bride.
Carlos
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 12, 2005 21:12:35 GMT
Well, I'm quite into old Chinese books or facsimilies of them, like my small collection of qinpu. This is my first 'old book' purchase that costed me £100 (around $170), but even though it wasn't looked after very well, and has been scribbled with inappropriate symbols which mean nothing to me, I still think it was good to get it. I could have got the brand spanking new hardback Western binding one that cost £35 ($60) but where's the fun in that!
As for the renovation work, it'll probably be the standard materials like xuan paper and flour glue like they use for Chinese paintings. Of course, I'm gonna leave the difficult bits to the experts if I find one, hopefully.
I'm gonna add one or two of my seals of ownership and appreciation on it, like I always do.
I bought it coz it will be useful translating old texts, like my current project, which is Ji Kang's Qin Fu. Unfortuantely, after flipping through the dic, even Kangxi didn't include entries for about 4 of the characters which are puzzling me (before, I had about a dozen with unknown meaning)! Oh well, may have to ask some Classical Chinese expert to decipher those rather thorny characters.
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Post by calden on Jul 13, 2005 2:23:35 GMT
Unfortuantely, after flipping through the dic, even Kangxi didn't include entries for about 4 of the characters which are puzzling me (before, I had about a dozen with unknown meaning)! Oh well, may have to ask some Classical Chinese expert to decipher those rather thorny characters. How interesting! My wife studied in Taiwan after graduating college, and got interested in jiaguwen. She's got books and books of ancient stuff that's just fascinating. Carlos |
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 13, 2005 9:29:55 GMT
Actually, I sort of reasoned out the meaning for all but two characters now by looking at their forms and variants. The two I guessed their meanings as to the closest form I can get, plus context to the neighbouring characters, it sorta makes sense... Anyways, I'll post pics or links of the offending characters when I have the time.
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Post by Dick on Jul 13, 2005 22:34:09 GMT
Hey Charlie, just curious: Does it really bother you that a previous owner wrote in the book? Why would you not appreciate the additional (and free!) information?
Over the years I've loaned many (many) texts of various kinds to friends and colleagues. All I ever require is that they promise not to cross anything out.
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 14, 2005 13:33:06 GMT
Not at all, except he / she wrote things in English (and arabic numeros), and in biro instead of brush ink that I thought was inappropriate to a Chinese style bound book. If he did it in Chinese, then that's perfectly acceptable. For me, it's a bit like someone writing English on an old scroll Chinese painting in biro, instead of using Chinese with ink and brush, it totally devalues the painting and is inappropriate and often inconsiderate to the artist who painted it. Sounds rather snobbish, but I like my little treasures and artifacts to be well keep and appreciated appropriately, and must have elegance. It pains me that for some of the title tags he applied sticky tape over it, which has yellowed...
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Post by yafeng on Apr 16, 2011 22:49:15 GMT
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Post by yafeng on Apr 16, 2011 22:51:56 GMT
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