Drawing on past experience, I believe that according to different needs, the following methods can be used to photocopy ancient books:
I. The famous Song and Yuan engravings, especially the only surviving orphan copies today, including the ming carved copies, the ming movable type books, and the particularly famous batch school copies, should be photocopied according to the original large. Listed in the "Three Editions of the Ancient Yi Series", such as the Southern Song Dynasty Chunxi Shi Longshu County Zhai carved "Golden Stone Record", with ming Tang Yin inscription, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Tibet Nanjing Ganshi Jinjiao Lou, the liberation of the early Zhao Shixian to obtain the value of corruption and then donated to the country. In the past, the Song ben that Feng Wenchang, Jiang Li, Ruan Yuan, Han Taihua, Pan Zuyin and others had only ten volumes inscribed, which were regarded as treasures, and they also carved "Ten Volumes of Golden Stone Records" to boast, and the complete copies of these thirty volumes were never found in the bibliography. Another example is the golden engraving of the "Renchen Re-proof Lü Taiwei Jingjin Zhuangzi Quanxi", which used to be believed that Lü's "Zhuangzi" had long been lost, and some people had also done the compilation work, but now the whole book is intact, which has long been longed for by those who have been studying Zhuang zhuang and studying Lü Huiqing's academic thinkers. Listed in the "First Collection of Ancient Books and Rare Books Series", such as the "Mozi" of the Ming Jiajing Zhicheng Copper Movable Type Blue Print reprinted by Huang Pilie, is the most difficult to see the orphan book in the old version of "Mozi", the old Tibetan Haiyuan Pavilion, which was later borrowed by Pan Zuyin and did not return it, and Luan Fu Jiusi, who specialized in ink studies, borrowed it and did not get it. Another example is the Ming Hongwu Shi Wang's Qin youtang engraving of "Zhenguan Politician", which was originally changed without the annotation of Yuan RenGe Zhizuo. In the "base book" of this book, it was mentioned that the reprint of "Zhenguan Politicians" in previous years misused Goben, and now it is regrettable that Hongwu carved the original can be photocopied. In short, the vast majority of these two "series of books" are properly selected and should be printed in a hurry. In addition, the paper for printing books should also be used to be more elegant, and the collection imprint of the original book should be set out in red. In the past, the Japanese photocopied Song and Yuan books, and sometimes even the binding was imitated from the original book as a butterfly suit. In the late 1950s, the mainland photocopied "Gu Yun Mei Bu Ju Ji Handwriting", tried the butterfly suit, the effect is very good, it has lasted for nearly thirty years, and there is no sign of peeling off the adhesion. Now photocopy the "Three Editions of the Guyi Series", etc., if you encounter the original book is a butterfly suit, why not try it as well. Therefore, I advocate that the photocopy of such a special and precious orphan book secret should be paid attention to, mainly considering that the purpose of photocopying such books is not only to make it widely circulated, but also to make some exquisite copies of these orphan book secrets, so that when people see the copy, they can get a general glimpse of the original appearance of the original book and receive the effect of the tiger. As for the price, it is not harmful to be a little higher, and it can be purchased by libraries and research institutions. In addition, some smaller paperback and hardcover copies were printed for circulation.
2. Shrink the photocopy. One is the above-mentioned special and precious solitary secret, which can be reduced and photocopied for circulation. Another kind is the general good book, that is, from the perspective of proofreading or cultural relics, it is undoubtedly a rare book, but it is not a special and precious orphan book secret, which is more numerous and should also be reduced and photocopied. In recent years, the "Qing Ren Bei Ji Series", which has been photocopied with rare original engravings, manuscripts, and old manuscripts, the "Collection of Poems of Tang Fifty Families", which collects photocopies of Ming movable characters, the rare engravings collected by Xie Guozhen and the "Series of Guati'an Tibetan Ming and Qing Dynasties", which is photocopied with copies of the manuscripts, and the original notes of Cheng Muheng and the "Poetry collection of Mr. Wu Meicun" supplemented by Yang Xuexun, which are photocopied with the Baoyunlou Black Grid codex of the Qianlong Dynasty, are all better printed in this kind of miniature photocopy. This kind of book generally has to be published in white newspaper paperback, and it is also advisable to print some raw paper and thread bound copies, such as the "Qing Ren Bei Ji Series". Because white newspapers may turn yellow and brittle over the decades, unlike raw paper, which can undergo a long period of deterioration.
Third, some of the tomes are of high value and useful, and are indispensable books for the study of the ancient literature and history of the mainland, and they need to be reprinted urgently. However, if the printing is typed in lead after the school is clicked, a project is too large, and it may not be completed after a protracted period of time, and it is not necessary. Because this kind of book is not a popular reading, only some experts and scholars use this kind of book, at most young graduate students and senior undergraduate students in colleges and universities, they all have a certain reading ability, do not have to rush to punctuate them. If you do some proofreading seriously, it is very necessary, but it is not too late to do it in the future. At present, better rare books should be selected in such books and photocopied as soon as possible to meet the urgent needs. The book is large, and we can draw on the experience of the lithography bookstore in the past in shrinking and printing ancient books, especially the experience of the enlightened bookstore in shrinking the "Twenty-Five Histories", the world bookstore's miniature printing of the "Thirteen Commentaries on the Thirteen Classics" and the "Zizhi Tongjian", etc. The method of shrinking and merging pages is used to shrink the original tens or hundreds of large books into several large hardcover books for inspection and use. The aforementioned "YuanGui of the Book" and "Wenyuan Yinghua" printed after liberation have adopted this method of miniature hardcover, which is very popular with readers.
Fourth, some ordinary ancient books, the head is not large, but it belongs to the text, rhyme, and exhortation, and there are many words that are not commonly used in the book, and there are many ancient characters in ancient scripts, and sometimes there are ancient characters such as gold script, small seal, and even lishu. It is difficult to typeset such books in lead and should also be photocopied. The base books used for photocopying are not necessarily used as rare books of cultural relics, as long as they are enough to be good in proofreading. For example, in recent years, the Ze Cuntang editions of "Guangyun" and "Jade Chapters", the original editions of "Guangya Shuzheng", "Erya Yishu", and "Scripture Compilation", as well as the original editions of "Li Chapter" and "Han Li Rhymes" are all more suitable. In addition, there are not difficulties in typography, but only urgently needed at present, too late to sort out the point of proofreading, you can also find a book to photocopy to meet the urgent need. Of course, the base you are looking for should be more exquisite, at least in the proofreading to be able to reach the good books.
In recent years, some problems have arisen in the photocopying of ancient books, although the problems are not big or many, and they still need to be mentioned here. First, the selected books were inappropriate, and the extremely unserious "Thousand Poems" and the vernacular translation of the "Book of Poetry" published by private merchants for profit in the old times were also photocopied. Another is that although the book can be printed, the selected base book is too bad, such as "Notes on Reading Wei Caotang", instead of the original edition of the Sheng clan in Jiaqing, but with the rewritten stone seal broken sentence copy of the past civilization bookstore, not only the words are vulgar and hateful, but the broken sentences are also wrong. It is really inappropriate for readers to spend money on such a bad book.
Author: Huang Yongnian