Xuehai leibian 學海類編

Xuehai leibian 學海類編 "Categorized compilation of the sea of learning" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) compiled by the Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Cao Rong 曹溶 (1613-1685), and a supplementary part compiled by Tao Yue 陶越. It includes 441 books with a total length of 810 juan.

In the beginning, Cao Rong started to compile his series in the shape of a private manuscript the books of which he divided into four parts (bu 部), namely Yijing 經翼 "Wings to the Classics", Shican 史參 "Material to histories", Zilei 子類 "Disciplines of the masters", and Jiyu 集餘 "Remaining belles-lettres". This structure corresponds to the four traditional categories of literature. The Belles-lettres category includes imperial edicts (xingzhi 行詣), reports of success in work (shigong 事功), prose and poetry (wenci 文詞), general private narratives (jishu 記述), textual research (kaoju 考據), accounts of special skills (yineng 藝能), books on health maintenance (baoshe 保攝), and travel reports (youlan 遊覽).

Cao Rong explains in the preface that he consciously did not include religious texts, reports of strange events, or books of superstitious character. He also refrained from including texts only surviving as fragments. Poems not concerned with concrete matters were also excluded, just like books dealing with tea and wine. Finally, he took care that the books to be part of the Xuehai leibian were not recorded in other series, like the Han-Wei congshu 漢魏叢書, Jindai mishu 津逮秘書, Gujin shuohai 古今說海 or Tancong 談叢.

The result was a careful assembly of ancient books that were not printed earlier than during the Ming period 明 (1368-1644). The Xuehai leibian therefore provides excellent sources for the text-critical study of Song- 宋 (960-1279) and Yuan- 元 (1279-1368) period prints. Cao Rong's series itself was only printed in 1831, an edition published as a facsimile in 1920 by the Hanfen Studio 涵芬樓 (see Hanfenlou miji 涵芬樓秘笈) in Shanghai.