Hanhai 函海

Hanhai 函海 "A sea of book cases" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) compiled by the Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Li Diaoyuan 李調元 (1734-1803). It includes 163 books in 40 cases (han 函), with a lotal length of 852 juan.

Li Diaoyuan, courtesy name Yucun 雨村, style Mozhuang 墨莊, hailed from Mianzhou 綿州 (modern Mianyang 綿陽, Sichuan) and only occupied minor posts in the local administration of southern China. He was an ardent collector of books and wrote quite a few poems and comments on poetry, like the Tongshan shiji 童山詩集 or Yucun shihua 雨村詩話.

His series Hanhai includes books from his own collection as well as copies from books of the palace library. There is a first print and a second print, the latter being a kind of supplement, the books of which were arranged in 20 book cases each. The first decade includes books from the Jin 晉 (265-420) and Southern Dynasties 南朝 (420~589) periods that had not been printed during the Song period 宋 (960-1279), cases 11 to 16 books that were not part of the library of the famous Ming-period 明 (1368-1644) writer and collector Yang Sheng'an 楊升庵 (1488-1559). The cases 17 to 24 of the first part included rare writings and text-critical editions. The rest of the series consists of Li Diaoyuan's own writings.

In 1800 Li Diaoyuan entered a privately quite difficult situation and often changed his dwelling place. During that period a lot of his writings went lost. After his death therefore, his younger brother Li Dingyuan 李鼎元 (1750-1805) published the series under his own name. Only during the Daoguang reign-period 道光 (1821-1850), Li Diaoyuan's son Li Chaokui 李朝夔 revised the surviving version and published it.

The Hanhai is very important because it contains many books not to be found in other series. The most important surviving editions are the original print of the Wanjuan Studio 萬卷樓 from the Qianlong reign-period 乾隆 (1736-1795), Li Dingyuan's edition, and Li Chaokui's revised edition from 1825. Zhong Dengjia 鐘登甲 (Ledao Studio 樂道齋) published a new edition in 1882 that includes a text not found in the original edition (the Changduanjing 長短經) and is partly arranged differently.