Yan Kejun

Yan Kejun (1762–1843), courtesy name Jingwen and art name Tieqiao, was a native of Wucheng in Zhejiang (present-day Huzhou). He was a Qing-dynasty philologist, textual scholar, and bibliophile. A provincial graduate of 1800, he served as an education official in Jiande. He devoted himself to the study of the Shuowen and to collating the stone classics, and his scholarship was distinguished by solid textual criticism. His most notable achievement was single-handedly compiling the Complete Prose of High Antiquity, the Three Dynasties, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, and Six Dynasties, which includes more than three thousand authors with brief biographies and has contributed greatly to preserving pre-Tang texts. The collection here contains 86 of his works, including the collected writings of Sima Tan and Sima Qian, Sima Xiangru, Dong Zhongshu, Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, and Emperor Wu of Wei, as well as the Complete Prose of High Antiquity and the Three Dynasties and the Complete Later Han Prose. These works span classical texts, Eastern philosophy, literary appreciation, and biography, reflecting his systematic organization and preservation of pre-Qin through Six Dynasties literature and providing an important foundation for later study of pre-Tang history, thought, and literature.