Baihai 稗海

Baihai 稗海 "Sea of Stories" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) compiled during the Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Shang Jun 商浚. It included 74 books and has a total length of 448 juan "scrolls".

Shang Jun, also called Shang Weijun 商維浚, courtesy name Chuyang 初陽, hailed from Guiji 會稽 (modern Shaoxing 紹興, Zhejiang) and is the author of the book Gujin pinglu 古今評錄. Shang Jun was befriended with a certain Master Niushixi 紐世溪先生, owner of a large library of rare books. Shang Jun put together some of these texts to provide them to a wider readership and added some more famous writings like Zhang Hua's 張華 (232-300) Bowuzhi 博物志, Gan Bao's 干寳 (d. 336) Soushenji 搜神記, Sun Guangxian's 孫光憲 (900-968) Beimeng suoyan 北夢瑣言 or Shen Kuo's 沈括 (1031－1094) Mengxi bitan 梦溪筆談.

The idea was to create a kind of continuation of the series Han-Wei congshu 漢魏叢書 that also includes widely circulating books as well as very rare ones from the Han and Wei periods. The Baihai covers the time period from the Jin 晉 (265-420) to the Yuan 元 (1279-1368) periods. The series was edited in two batches, the second one of which is occasionally called Xu baihai 續稗海. This is the part beginning with Duan Chengshi's 段成式 (803-863) Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎.

Seen from content and title, the Baihai was variously categorized as a collection of novels, like in the official bibliography of the dynastic history Mingshi 明史, or as an encyclopaedia, like in the book catalogue Qianqingtang shumu 千頃堂書目.

The Baihai is important because it helped preserving book that were otherwise lost in the depth of private libraries. The only problem is that the basic editions used for the first publication lacked a certain quality and include a lot of printing errors. A facsimile edition by the Zhenlu Studio 振鷺堂 is 449-juan-long.