08/09 – Cloudy. Rest day. Morning, went with Jishi to Zhiliguan bookstore in Liulichang and bought the first and second installments of the Shixun Tang Series, 32 fascicles in total, six yuan and five jiao. Returned home later, caught in light rain. Received Minxing ribao from September 1st.
Clear sky in the afternoon. Scrolled through the Shixun Tang Series: it’s a woodblock-print edition [originally] carved by Zhang Shoukang from Huiji [Shaoxing], [whose block-prints were] then acquired by Zhu Jirong from Wu [Zhejiang]; this particular set of books is a reprint published by the latter, which also includes a number of books from the Huai Lu Collection. With the order of the books changed, its title was later changed to Xiaojing Shanfang Collection, and Zhang’s name has since disappeared. Speaking of the value of Zhu Jirong’s edition, Zhu deals with old books similarly to how [publisher] Zhang Yuanji does with new books.* Reading the Paratexts to the Tower of Worship, I also learnt that Writings from the Desolate Cottage has also been recently reprinted in the Historical Records of the Zhuang Family, and that the Wu family’s [Wu Yinsun’s] book collection became part of the Commercial Press’s holdings.
Bout of rain in the afternoon. Evening, Daosun brought me out for drinks at Pianyi fang, where we sat at the same table with Jishi as well as Wang Shuxia and his older brother.
* This was a difficult entry to translate. Its difficulty stems from its content: fine points on the editorial history of lesser-known books acquired in Beijing by Lu Xun—a committed antiquarian. In particular, it is difficult to ascertain from the source text of the diary whether Lu Xun’s opinion about famous publisher Zhang Yuanji (1867-1959) was a positive or negative one, and whether “Zhu Jirong’s edition” thus had actual value in Lu Xun’s eyes or not. The use of the word fan 厄 (“adversity”, “hardship”, “to be in distress”) in the source text (記榮本書估，其厄古籍，正猶張元濟之於新籍也) might suggest a negative connotation, as in “Zhi Jirong mistreats/brings bad things to old books, in the same way Zhang Yuanji does with new books.” At the same time, fan 厄 is also given in dictionaries as a variant of zuo 作, which somewhat justifies the more open-ended translation “Zhu deals with old books similarly to how [publisher] Zhang Yuanji does with new books.” As always, more research is needed.
** On this note, I would like to thank my friends Michelle Jia Ye, Sophie Wei, and Xu Chun for their precious feedback.
Lu Xun's Diary, translated 