방각본 『십구사략』 간행의 양상과 의미 – 1권을 중심으로 –

Abstract

Eighteen Abbreviated Histories of Ancient China (十八史略) was written by Zeng Xian Zhi (曾先之) of the Yuan (元) dynasty. Later, the history of the Yuan dynasty was added to it and so the book eventually got to contain nineteen abbreviated histories of China. Both were imported in Chosun. But mentions about the Zeng’s original version are found only in the Early Chosun period records. The so-called Saryak (史略) came to mean the extended version, Nineteen Abbreviated Histories of Ancient China (十九史略), in late Chosun period. Although the origin of both the Eighteen and the Nineteen was China, they were not popular in their home country. Instead, they gained fame in Korea and Japan. The Eighteen were constantly and widely read in Japan and the Nineteen after in Korea. In Chosun, a large quantity of the Nineteen was published as government publication. However, its commercial woodblock printed version began to appear from the 19th century. Although the government publication version usually published as seven or eight volumes as a whole, it seems that the commercial book makers made a different decision. Except a few cases, most of the remaining commercial versions only contain the first volume of the entire volume. The reason why they did not published the entire volume was related to Seodang education. The Nineteen was widely read as a Seodang text book but since the education did not go beyond the Three Kingdoms, which was about Volume Three, there was not so much demand for further volumes. The aim of this paper is to provide a list of the commercial woodblock printed version of the Nineteen with special attention to the publication of the first volume. I have collected more than thirty different versions of the first volume of the Nineteen and classified them. Since there is not even a list of Classical Chinese woodblock printings, this paper would be a stepping stone to the research in this field.