Songwenjian 宋文鑒

Songwenjian 宋文鑒 (宋文鑑) "The best examples of Song-period literature" is an anthology of writings from the Northern Song period 北宋 (960-1126). It was compiled on imperial order by Lü Zuqian 呂祖謙 (1137-1181) and originally bore the title Huangchao wenjian 皇朝文鍳 "The best examples of literature from Our Dynasty".

It has a length of 150 juan and is divided into 61 categories. Chapters 1 to 11 include rhapsodies (fu 賦), chapters 12 to 30 "regular" shi 詩-style poems, and chapters 30 to 150 cover prose literature. The writings of more than 200 authors are included. The selection of the pieces was explicitly not geared to the personal integrity or importance of the authors, but to the quality of the poems and writings, especially from the period on when there were plenties of literary writings available. This was not the case for the very early years of the Song dynasty. The high literary quality of the book enhanced its popularity among Song period scholars.

There are several prints from the Ming 明 (1368-1644) and Qing 清 (1644-1911) periods, of which the most widespread version is that in the series Sibu congkan 四部叢刊, for which a facsimile of a Song-period print is reproduced. This version is 3 chapters longer than the Ming-period print of Yanzhou 嚴州, however, one chapter of the juan 61 is missing.