Lionel Giles

“ The first lei-shu, however, which made a serious attempt to cover the whole field of existing human knowledge, and thus has a real claim to the title of encyclopaedia, had appeared more than three centuries earlier. This was the 太平御覽 T'ai P'ing Yü Lan, an extensive collection issued by Imperial command in 1,000 chüan or books, grouped under 55 categories, each of these being divided into further subheads. It professes to give information on any subject required, through the medium of passages drawn from no fewer than 1,690 classical and other works, a list of which stands at the beginning. ”

“ PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
The Trustees of the British Museum, seeing the need of a full alphabetical index to the great Chinese Encyclopaedia acquired by them in 1877, resolved that this work should be prepared, and entrusted the task to Mr. L. Giles, Assistant in this Department. The methods that have been followed by Mr. Giles in the compilation of this index, together with a history of the Encyclopaedia itself, are fully set forth in his Introduction.
L. D. BARNETT,
Keeper of the Department of Oriental
Printed Books and MSS.
British Museum. ”

“ It should be noted in passing that the Chinese lei-shu, that is, a work of reference arranged under categories, differs from the Western 'encyclopaedia' in that it contains no original articles on any subject, but consists simply of grouped extracts from previously existing literature. Considering the date of production (A.D. 987) , the Yü Lan must be regarded as a highly meritorious achievement. The next large encyclopaedia to appear (not counting the Wên Hsien T'ung K'ao) was the 玉海 Yü Hai or 'Sea of Jade', in 21 sections, comprising upwards of 240 subheads. ”