Zhaodai congshu 昭代叢書

Zhaodai congshu 昭代叢書 "Collectanea of the Glorious Dynasty" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) compiled by the early Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Zhang Chao 張潮 (1650-?). It includes 561 books in ten collections (ji 集), with a total length of 500 juan.

Zhang Chao, courtesy name Shanlai 山來, style Xinzhai 心齋, hailed from Shexian 歙縣, Anhui, and was a clerk (kongmu 孔目) in the Hanlin Academy 翰林院. He was not only a competent poet and writer but also published some important series, like the Yuchu xinzhi 虞初新志 and the Zhaodai congshu. His collected writings are called Xinzhai liaofu ji 心齋聊復集.

The Zhaodai congshu was compiled by Zhang Chao and revised by Yang Fuji 楊復吉 (1747-1820), courtesy name Lie'ou 列歐 or Liehou 列侯, style Menglan 夢蘭 or Huilou 慧樓, Yang expanded it to the size in which is was first published. It includes mostly writings of Qing-period writers, a circumstance that gave the series its title. From the themes, it covers the whole bandwidth of traditional Chinese literature, among them many interesting and rare texts on contemporary matters of politics, administration and geography, like Yang Bin's 楊賓 (1650-1720) Ningguta jilüe 寧古塔紀略, Jin Dechun's 金德純 Qijunzhi 旗軍志, or Tulišen's (Ch. Tulichen 圖理琛, 1667-1740) Yiyuzhi 異域志. The Zhaodai congshu includes not full books, but in most cases only extracts of important chapters, sometimes to such an extreme that, for instance, the rhapsody Haifu 海賦 by Xu Huaizu 徐懷祖 (fl. 1695) is not included, but only Zhang Chao's commentaries on it, with the title Taiwan suibi 臺灣隨筆. The series is, nevertheless, an important source for the study of early Qing period scholarship on Chinese literature.

It was printed by the Shikai Studio 世楷堂. In 1990 the Shanghai Guji Press 上海古籍出版社 published a facsimile of this original edition.