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Appendix A 149 Appendix A A Note on the Text Qian Qianyi’s own preface to his “Account of My Travels at Yellow Mountain” 游黃山記 is dated the first month of the renwu 壬午 year (1642). If we date the trip itself to the third month of the previous year, then there was an interval of ten months between the journey and the composition of the preface to the essay. While it is possible that the preface was written long after the composition of the rest of the essay, Qian’s reference to his “cold window” 寒 窗 does suggest that the preface date (i.e. the first month of the year) applies to the entire prose account. The completed essay in ten parts (including preface) was first published in the Muzhai chuxueji, the 110-juan collection of Qian’s early writings compiled by his friend and pupil Qu Shisi. This collection is almost universally ascribed to the guiwei 癸未 year (1643), after Qu Shisi’s preface, which bears that date.1 There is though, considerable evidence to suggest that the project was enlarged after the setting of the table of contents, and that the collection on which presently existing editions are based was not finally completed until the jiashen 甲申 year (1644).2 The preface to the collection written by Cao Xuequan 曹學佺 (zi Nengshi 能始, hao Shicang 石倉; 1574–1647) is certainly dated 1644, and even allowing for the possibility of its being pre-dated, the collection contains at least one poem written at the start of that year.3 This poem is attached to juan 20下, not mentioned in the table of contents, and sadly no longer evident in Qian Zhonglian’s 錢仲聯 Shanghai guji chubanshe 上海古藉出版社 editions (in which 20上 and 20下 are combined). Qu Shisi’s preface refers to 100 juan only, while the copy later made by Wang Shimin 王 時敏 (zi Xunzhi 遜之, hao Yanke 烟客; 1592–1680) was said to have been based 150 Appendix A on a manuscript of the same size, suggesting that this was the scope of the original collection as at the ninth month of 1643 (the date of the Qu preface).4 At present the Muzhai chuxueji exists in two forms. Around the year 1675, Qian’s great-great-nephew Qian Zeng 錢曾 (zi Zunwang 遵王, hao Yeshiweng 也是翁; 1629–1700?) produced an annotated edition, in twenty fascicles, of the poems contained in the Muzhai chuxueji, titled Muzhai chuxueji shizhu 牧齋初學集詩註 [Annotated Poetry from the Muzhai chuxueji].5 Censorship of Qian Qianyi’s works following the Qianlong Emperor’s eighteenth-century edicts resulted in a gap of more than two hundred years before, in the second year of the Xuantong 宣統 reign (1910), the original Qu edition and the Qian Zeng commentaries were brought together to form a single text by Xue Fengchang 薛鳳昌 (zi Gongxia 公俠, hao Suihanzhai 邃漢齋; 1876–1943) at the Suihanzhai 邃漢齋, and published as part of the Muzhai quanji 牧齋全集 [Complete Works from Shepherd’s Studio], a collection that also included the Muzhai youxueji and the Toubiji 投筆集 [Abandoned Brush Collection; containing those poems written after 1658 but not included in the Muzhai youxueji]. This edition was published by Shanghai’s Wenming shuju 文明書局, and reprinted in 1925. Meanwhile, the Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館 published a facsimile reprint of the original Qu edition as part of the first series 初編 (1919–22) of the Sibu congkan 四 部叢刊 collection, ignoring the commentaries by Qian Zeng and the later Suihanzhai synthesis text. When the Shanghai guji chubanshe brought out a new edition of Muzhai chuxueji in 1985, the editor Qian Zhonglian used the Suihanzhai edition as his base text 底本, apparently consulting the Sibu congkan edition to make further emendations.6 This text was republished without alteration in the Shanghai guji chubanshe edition of Qian Muzhai quanji 錢牧齋全集 (QMZQJ) that appeared in 2003.7 For the copy-text (see Appendix B) of my translation of “You Huangshan ji” I have taken the version found in the SBCK edition of the Muzhai chuxueji (Volume 3, pp. 483–90) as my principal authority, as it is the most readily accessible facsimile reprint of the original Ming edition. The Shanghai guji chubanshe editions, being based on the Suihanzhai synthesis text, have had more opportunity to be altered in transmission, and the inclusion of the Qian Zeng commentaries is in any case unnecessary here, as the prose essays of the Muzhai chuxueji were never annotated. I have made some emendations on the basis of reference to the alternative texts (b–j): (a) SBCK: The text of “You Huangshan ji” found in the Sibu congkan edition of Muzhai chuxueji (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan...

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