裴松之

Pei Songzhi is an important historian in ancient China. Public information about his life and nationality is limited, and his birth and death years are unknown. The works currently attributed to him consist mainly of annotated editions and selected sections related to the Records of the Three Kingdoms. Nine titles are included in the collection, such as the Annotated Edition of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, the Wei Book, the Shu Book, the Wu Book, a translated and annotated edition, a three-volume edition, and an edition in the Chinese Classics Popular Library series. He supplemented history through annotation, drawing widely on alternative accounts to examine, supplement, and preserve Chen Shou's original text, enriching details about figures and institutions of the Three Kingdoms period. His annotations combine historical value with the reading interest of prose miscellany. His style is rigorous and erudite, often listing variant accounts side by side and noting their sources, and his influence extends across classical literature, historical reading, and Eastern philosophy.