Distribution of Sino-European Intercultural Texts in Chinese Private Libraries of the Late Ming and the Early to Mid-Qing Periods (1582–c.1823)

Abstract

Abstract This article focusses on the distribution of Sino-European books in the broad scholarly world: how did these books that are intercultural regarding authorship, content, and material aspect, reach their potential readers? And how widely were these books distributed? It investigates the extent to which these books were included in private libraries from the late Ming until the mid-Qing (1582–c.1823). Book printing had become very efficient in the second half of the sixteenth century and collecting books, both in printed and manuscript form, had become one of the favourite hobbies of (retired) scholars. Some of them accumulated very large libraries, and the catalogues of a few of these have been preserved. Thirty-seven of the still extant catalogues of these libraries contain references to Sino-European books. These references provide the opportunity to investigate the distribution of such intercultural texts over a span of two hundred and fifty years. This article begins with a general presentation of these catalogues. Subsequently, individual catalogues are described in chronological order. When possible, a description is included of the collector’s link with European missionaries or Chinese Christians, as it is through these connections that the intercultural encounters around these texts took place. Next, by tracing the frequency of appearance of the works, this article explores what the extant catalogues can tell us about the distribution of Sino-European books. Finally, the focus moves to the ways the collectors classified these works in their catalogues. By investigating the bibliographic categories, this analysis reveals the intercultural negotiations that took place in the creation of the Sino-European book world.