Chizaotang siku quanshu huiyao 摛藻堂四庫全書薈要

Chizaotang siku quanshu huiyao 摛藻堂四庫全書薈要 is a short version of the large imperial series Siku quanshu 四庫全書 that was compiled on imperial order under the supervision of Yu Minzhong 于敏中 (1714-1779) and Wang Jihua 王際華 (1717-1776) and completed in 1778 with the original title (Qinding) Siku quanshu huiyao (欽定)四庫全書薈要. It includes 464 texts, out of the more than 3,400 texts included in the Siku quanshu.

The series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) was produced in two copies, one stored in the Weiyu Library 味腴書室 of Changchunyuan Garden 長春園 on the east side of Yuanmingyuan Garden 圓明園 and destroyed in 1860 during the British-French conquest of Beijing, and a second one stored in Chizaotang Hall 摛藻堂 of the Yuhuayuan Garden 御花園 in the Imperial Palace. The latter survives and is therefore commonly called Chizaotang siku quanshu huiyao 摛藻堂四庫全書薈要.

Like the Siku quanshu, the Huiyao is also accompanied by two descriptive catalogue, namely a zongmu 總目, and a tiyao 提要. In the Siku quanshu, however, these are unified as zongmu tiyao, where basic information of texts (size, arrangement, author, basic editions) and textual descriptions of individual books are found in one coherent catalogue.

The categories more or less imitated that the Siku quanshu, but not all sub-categories were adapted, and some changes were made in the designations. There are, for instance, no Buddhist writings (shijia lei 釋家類) included. The Chunqiu fanlu 春秋繁露 was not classified as a sub-classic in the section of the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu lei 春秋類), but as a Confucian text (rujia lei 儒家類), and the Shanghaijing 山海經 was classified as a geographical text (dili 地理類), and not – as in the Siku quanshu – as a collection of stories (xiaoshuojia lei 小說家類). The category of coalition advisors (zonghengjia lei 縱橫家類) was entirely new, as well as separate categories for commentaries on the Lunyu 論語 and Mengzi 孟子, which were – in the Siku quanshu – seen as part of the Four Books (Sishu lei 四書類).