Junzhai dushu zhi 郡齋讀書志

Junzhai dushu zhi 郡齋讀書志 "Records of books read in my studio in the province" is the oldest surviving book catalogue of a private library. It was compiled by the Southern Song-period 南宋 (1127-1279) collector and scholar Chao Gongwu 晁公武 (c. 1105-1180).

Chao had written some commentaries on the Confucian Classics and made studies on the early stone inscriptions of the Classics, as reflected in his book Shijing kaoyi 石經考異 (not the Shijing kaoyi of Hang Shijun 杭世駿). His catalogue was written after he had been presented by a huge pile of books by Jing Du 井度 when Chao was a government official in Sichuan.

The catalogue follows the traditional four categories of the Confucian Classics (jing 經, with 10 subcategories), historiographic books (shi 史, 13 subcategories), masters and philosophers (zi 子, 17 subcategories) and belles-lettres (ji 集, 3 subcategories), making out a total of 43 subcategories in the Yuanzhou version 袁州本 and 45 in the Quzhou version 衢州本 (with the additional categories xingli 星歷 "astronomy" in the Masters and wenshuo 文說 "novels" in the belles-lettres).

There is a general introduction (Zongxu 總序) to the book, introductions to each category (zonglun 總論) and to each subcategory (xiaoxu 小序). For each book, Chao Gongwu provides information about the author and the content of his book, for some books he also gives a general idea about the scholarly field the book belongs to. His catalogue is thus one of the most detailed descriptions of early books in China and therefore influenced a lot of contemporary writings, like the catalogue Zhizhai shulu jieti 直齋書錄解題 or the catalogue in the history Wenxian tongkao 文獻通考 (Jingji kao 經籍考).

The Junzhai dushu zhi was printed in 1157 with a length of 4 juan. In 1249 another print was produced in Quzhou 衢州, with a length of 20 juan. The catalogue includes 1,461 books, maps and pictures. The 4-juan long Yuanzhou print from 1240 includes 7 items more. This edition also includes a supplement (Houzhi 後志) of 2 juan, a critical commentary (Kaoyi 考異) in 1 juan, and an appendix (Fuzhi 附志) in 1 juan. The supplement includes 435 books that are included in the Quzhou version, but not in the main text of the Yuanzhou version. The appendix includes 486 books of the library of Prince Zhao Xibian 趙希弁, most of which were published after the death of Chao Gongwu.

The series Siku quanshu 四庫全書 includes a "pocket book" (jinxiangben 巾箱本) version from the early Qing period 清 (1644-1911) . The original Yuanzhou print was only redisdovered in 1925 in the Imperial Palace. It is included in the 3rd series of the Sibu congkan 四部叢刊, the series Hanfenlou congkan 涵芬樓叢刊 (see Hanfenlou miji 涵芬樓秘笈), and the Wanyou wenku 萬有文庫 series.

The Quzhou version was only available in a manuscript version during the Qing period. It was published in 1884 by Wang Xianqian 王先謙 (1842-1918) with a supplement. In 1990 the Shanghai Guji Press 上海古籍出版社 published a modern edition, the Junzhai dushu zhi jiaozheng 郡齋讀書志校證, based on the Quzhou version and critically compared with the Yuanzhou version.