Cheng Jiaben's "Dream of Red Mansions" debuted at Guardian Spring Auction丨China Guardian 2024 Spring Auction

The 2024 China Guardian Spring Auction Rare Books Department has acquired 120 copies of the movable type book "Dream of the Red Chamber" from the 56th year of Qianlong (1791) of the Qing Dynasty, that is, the world-famous "Cheng Jiaben" "Dream of the Red Chamber". Cheng Jiaben is extremely rare, including this Ji Jiade, which is currently known to be in public and private collections, of which there are 11 kinds of 120 complete copies. There are only 2 types of marketable people, including this Guardian this season. The emergence of Cheng Jiaben is a major event in the history of Chinese novels, Chinese literature, and even Chinese culture. It provided the first complete 120 episodes of "Dream of Red Mansions" for thousands of readers, and made irreplaceable contributions to the dissemination of this great literary work. It is a blessing for Shulin to be able to see Cheng Jiaben's true face again at the auction this season.

Dream of the Red Chamber is one of China's greatest novels and a towering peak in the history of Chinese culture. Since the publication of Dream of the Red Chamber more than 200 years ago, generations of annotations, evidences, concealments, comments, and studies on this book have been inexhaustible. It can be said that there has never been a literary work that has attracted so much attention and dedication from so many people.

From the beginning of the advent of "Dream of Red Mansions" to the death of the author Cao Xueqin for nearly 30 years or so, "Dream of Red Mansions" has been circulating in the world in the form of 80 manuscripts, until the 56th year of Qianlong Xinhai (1791), Cheng Weiyuan and his friend Gao He "tried their best to collect" the manuscripts of "Dream of Red Mansions" over the years, "carefully selected, truncated and supplemented the shortcomings, and copied them all", and typeset and published 120 times of "New Engraving All Embroidered Like Dream of Red Mansions" in the name of "Cui Shuwu", which was later named "Cheng Jiaben" by Mr. Hu Shi. Dream of Red Mansions.

The publication of Cheng Jiaben's Dream of the Red Chamber in 1791 was a major event in the history of Chinese literature and even Chinese culture. Cheng Jiaben, published in the form of movable wooden type, continues the appearance of some early manuscripts in the Qianlong period, which proves the fact and value of the existence of early lipocopy, which is of great significance for the study of the version and the process of writing the Dream of the Red Chamber. At the same time, the publication of Cheng Jiaben completed the wider dissemination of Dream of the Red Chamber, which not only combined the novel into a complete book, but also provided thousands of readers with the first complete 120 copies of The Dream of the Red Chamber, and also made the Dream of the Red Chamber end the era of handwritten circulation and enter the printing age, which was transformed into thousands in an instant, making irreplaceable contributions to the dissemination of this great literary work.

Lot 4044

(Qing) by Cao Xueqin, compiled by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E

Cheng Jiaben's "New Engraving All Embroidered Like Dream of Red Mansions" is one hundred and twenty times

In the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1791), the movable type book of the library was extracted

4 letters, 32 volumes, on paper

Seals: Juhongxuan, Spring Ploughing Collection

This season Guardian collected Cheng Jiaben a total of 4 letters and 32 volumes, the first volume is Tuzan and one hundred and twenty table of contents, the frontispiece of Cheng Wei Yuan preface has been lost, and the preface of Gao E is still incomplete. Twenty-four pictures are half-leaf pictures with half-leaf praises (carved twenty-four leaves), among which Baoyu Tuzan is remnant, stone, Jiafu ancestral hall, Shi Taijun, Jia Zhengwang's wife Tuzan is broken and still exists, and the following pictures and praises are complete in Yuanchun. One hundred and twenty catalogues (wooden movable type version of thirteen leaves) are complete.

The second volume begins with the text of the Dream of Red Mansions, with ten lines in the first half of the text, twenty-four characters in the line, white mouth, and a single black fishtail. The color of the paper is different from yellow and white, and the yellow version frame is surrounded by two sides, which is Cheng Jiaben. The paper color is slightly white, the upper and lower sides of the frame, the left and right unilateral, for Cheng Yiben to supplement.

There is no doubt that Cheng Jiaben is the most important version in the history of the dissemination of "Dream of Red Mansions", occupying a prominent position in connecting the past and the next. Due to the extremely limited print run at Cheng Weiyuan's personal expense, Cheng Jiaben was revised and printed again less than three months after its publication, so Cheng Jiaben and Cheng Yiben that have been handed down to this day are extremely rare. Regarding the existence of Cheng Jiaben, scholars have done extensive and in-depth research and investigation. At present, there are 1 8 kinds of Cheng Jiaben in the library and private collection, including fragments, of which there are 11 kinds of 120 complete copies, namely:

1. There are two kinds of books in the library of Peking University, the first one was originally collected by Ma Youyu, which was the working manuscript edited before the publication of the Dongguan Pavilion Bookstore, and was later donated to Hu Shi. There are five trips to supplement the B, and the second is also the old collection of Ma Youyu, with 30 trips to supplement the B.

2. National Library of China Ma Youyu Collection. There is a mix.

3. Collection of the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Around 1963, a Chinese bookstore acquired a copy of "Cheng Jiaben" "Dream of Red Mansions" from a private person, 120 times. The red academic circles rushed to tell each other, and it was passed on as a beautiful talk, and this book was later treasured by the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. No mixing.

4. Collection of the Chinese Academy of Arts. Version status unknown.

5. Collection of People's Daily. There is a mix.

6. Kano Bunko Collection, Tohoku University Library, Japan. Unknown

7. The collection of the famous Russian sinologist Kamensky of St. Petersburg University. No mixing.

8. Collection of Chinese bookstores. This is the old collection of Yang Jizhen. There are 40 return trips.

9. China Guardian 2017 Spring Auction Kangsheng Collection. No mixing.

10. China Guardian 2024 Spring Auction Cheng Jiaben, this book was auctioned by China Guardian in 2008, and Cheng Yiben is supplemented.

The above eleven kinds of Cheng Jiaben are all in public collection, and only two are circulated in the market, which can prove that Cheng Jiaben is the rarest thing in the world, and it is really rare as a star and phoenix. This season's Guardian book is reproduced after 16 years of collection, and collectors should treasure it.

The version of "Dream of Red Mansions" can be divided into two major systems: one is the "Fat Commentary" manuscript system with the first 80 chapters as the basic content, and the other is the Cheng Gao version system represented by "Cheng Jiaben". The Cheng Gao version system, represented by "Cheng Jiaben", is different from the manuscript and is printed and published using movable type. There are mainly Cheng Jiaben, Cheng Yi Ben and many versions derived from it. Cheng Jiaben refers to the 56th year of Qianlong (1791), Cheng Weiyuan, Gao Yi collated, Beijing Cui Shuwu wooden movable type printed "New Engraving All Embroidered Like a Dream of Red Mansions", the whole book 120 times, divided into 24 volumes, 4 letters, frame height 16.6 cm, width 10.9 cm, left and right, 10 lines per half leaf, 24 characters per line. The frontispiece has a preface by Cheng Weiyuan, 2 leaves. At the bottom of the preface, the oval yang text is printed "Game Samadhi", at the end of the preface is the rectangular yang text "Xiaoquan", and the yin text is printed "Cheng Weiyuan Yin"; At the bottom of the preface is a rectangular yang inscription "Yuexiao Shanfang", and below the second leaf, a yin inscription is printed "Chenyu Seal", and a Yang inscription is printed "Lanshu Gaoshi". Followed by 24 picture likes, front pictures and back likes, table of contents 13 leaves. At the end of the 120th round, it was signed "Extract Book House Collection".

In the 57th year of Qianlong (1792), Cui Shuwu published another edition of "Embroidered Like a Dream of Red Mansions", which is the so-called "Cheng Yiben", which is the abbreviation of the second edition of the wooden movable type book "Dream of Red Mansions" revised by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao He on the basis of Cheng Jiaben's "Dream of Red Mansions". Cheng Yi's book is also 120 chapters, and it is the same as Cheng Jia's book in terms of title, preface, picture like, review, and line. However, there is only a preface by Gao E, not a preface by Cheng Weiyuan, and seven "introductions" co-signed by Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E have been added. In the "Introduction," Cheng and Gao gave the following explanations on the reasons for the revision and reprinting: First, "the initial printing was not as detailed as the proofreading, and there were occasional mistakes," "Today, the extensive collection of verification and surveying, the accuracy of the situation, and the supplementation and revision, during which the increase or loss of figures are intended to facilitate reading"; second, it is explained that the first edition "did not add comments" because "the first printing was made, there were many volumes, and the labor force was huge"; third, after the publication of Cheng Jiaben, "it was popular for a while, and it was almost more than a collection at home", and "there were four begging in the market", simply put, Cheng Jia's book was in short supply, which was also Cheng Weiyuan. One of the reasons why Gao He and Cui Books reprinted Cheng Yi's book.

There are many differences between the two books A and B, according to Wang Yuanfang's statistics, Cheng B has made a lot of additions, deletions and changes to Cheng Jia. The number is as high as 21,505 words, and 15,538 words were added or deleted in the first 80 episodes alone. Mr. Feng Qiyong said: "In terms of edition value, the text of Cheng Yiben is far inferior to Cheng Jiaben, which is closer to the manuscript of the Fat Commentary." Therefore, in the Cheng Gao system version, Cheng Jiaben has a dominant significance, and all subsequent editions are basically regarded as the guideline.

Cheng Jiaben's greatest historical contribution is to continue and supplement the content of the last 40 chapters, realizing the combination of the previous chapters of "Dream of Red Mansions", and achieving a complete chapter structure and content system. According to the information of the fat critic, Cao Xueqin did create the second half of the novel, but unfortunately it has been "lost". Cheng Jiaben completes the content, providing a more readable complete work for future generations. In Cheng Weiyuan's preface, he said: "In order to collect as much as possible, bibliophiles and even piles of old papers have paid attention to it, and in the past few years, only more than 20 volumes have been accumulated. One day, I even got more than ten volumes on the drum, so I bought it at a high price, and happily read it, and saw its ups and downs, which was still a bamboo shoot, and then it was out of control. It is the same friends who carefully elaborate, truncated the long and made up for the shortcomings, copied the whole book, and reprinted it as an engraved board, so that the whole book of "Dream of Red Mansions" was completed from the beginning. ”

After Cheng Jiaben came out, novels rewritten, continued, rewritten, and imitated according to him continued to emerge. Although the creative motives are different, they illustrate the popularity of Cheng Jiaben from the side, and also show the great artistic charm of the original novel. During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, new punctuation and lead printing copies of "Dream of Red Mansions" began to appear. After 1949, a simplified version of "Dream of the Red Chamber" appeared, and millions of copies were published. The vast majority of these editions are still printed according to Cheng Jiaben. In addition, many translations, including English, French, German, Russian, and Japanese, as well as Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uyghur minority languages, have been based on Cheng Jia's version.

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