Rui Tingzhang was a Tang-dynasty anthologist. His official career, native place, and dates of birth and death are not reliably recorded, and public information about him is limited; what is known of his life rests mainly on the prefaces and selected poems that survive in his anthology Guoxiu ji (Collected Flowers of the Nation). That work gathers poems by High Tang poets, preserving men through their verse and choosing poems by their authors, and it broadly reflects the poetic scene of the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras. It is an important anthology for the study of the transmission and reception of Tang poetry and has influenced later compilations of Tang verse. A second title in the library, Guimo cuizhen, is classed under classic works and literary appreciation; its contents and compilation cannot be described in detail for lack of material. Rui Tingzhang is thus known chiefly as a selector and anthologist, valued for preserving poems and judging styles rather than for his own creative writing.
