Qian Zhongshu - Posthumous Publications

Posthumous Publications

A 13-volume edition of Works of Qian Zhongshu (錢鍾書集，钱锺书集) was published in 2001 by the Joint Publishing, a hard-covered deluxe edition, in contrast to all of Qian's works published during his lifetime which are cheap paperbacks. The publisher claimed that the edition had been proofread by many experts. One of the most valuable parts of the edition, titled Marginalias on the Marginalias of Life (寫在人生邊上的邊上), is a collection of Qian's writings previously scattered in periodicals, magazines and other books. The writings collected there are, however, arranged without any visible order.

Other posthumous publications of Qian's works have drawn harsh criticism. The 10-volume Supplements to and Revisions of Songshi Jishi (宋詩紀事補正), published in 2003, was criticized as a shoddy publication. The editor and the publisher have been criticized for neglecting such obvious printing mistakes. A facsimile of Qian's holograph (known as 宋詩紀事補訂(手稿影印本) in Chinese) has been published in 2005, by another publisher. The facsimiles of parts of Qian's notebooks appeared in 2004, and have similarly drawn criticism on account of blatant inadvertency. In 2005, a collection of Qian's English works was published. Again, it was lashed for its editorial incompetence.