Baijinglou congshu 拜經樓叢書

Baijinglou congshu 拜經樓叢書 "Collectanea of the Pavillion of the Veneration of Classics" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) complied by the Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Wu Jian 吳騫 (1733-1813) and revised by Zhu Jirong 朱記榮 (1836-1905). It includes 31 books with a total length of 98 juan.

Wu Qian, courtesy name Chake 槎客 or Tulin 兔林, hailed from Haining 海寧 (modern Haining, Zhejiang) and was an ardent collector and publisher of ancient books. He specialised on excellent editions that he copied and republished. His own library contained no less than 50,000 volumes. For this large amount of books he had erected the Baijing Hall 拜經樓 "Veneration of the Classics". Wu Qian was a competent painter and poet. His collected writings are included in the Baijinglou shiwen ji 拜經樓詩文集.

Zhu Jirong, courtesy name Maozhi 懋之, style Huailu 槐廬, hailed from Wuxian 吳縣 (modern Suzhou 蘇州, Jiangsu) and was a professional antiquarian bookseller. He also possessed an own library in Songjiang 松江 that was housed in the Huailu Hall 槐廬堂. He published two own series, the Huailu congshu 槐廬叢書 and Jiaojing shangfang congshu 校經山房叢書, as well as a collection of model calligraphy, the Jinshi quanli 金石全例.

The Baijinglou congshu came into being as a collection of various writings that were published one after the other. Wu Qian's first series was the Yugu congshu 愚谷叢書, in which only three books were included, namely Xie Xuancheng shiji 謝宣城詩集, Chanshu 讒書, and Baijinglou shihua 拜經樓詩話. In the late 1790s, Wu Qian published his last set of books. Only during the Guangxu reign-period 光緒 (1875-1908), Zhu Jirong put these various sets together, revised them and published it as a single series with the title Baijinglou congshu, first ten books, and finally in a version with 31 writings. The greatest part of the books in the Baijinglou congshu are collections of poetry and prose writings or literary critique to writings of the belles-lettres category. As a collection of literary high-standing books the collectanea is a very important publication.

The most important editions are the original Yugu congshu, the revised version with 7 books from 1885, published by Zhang Echu 章鄂渚, Zhu Jirong's version from 1894 that includes 10 books, and the large version of the Bogu Studio 博古齋 in Shanghai with 31 books, dating from the early Republican period.