Complete Ci of the Ming Dynasty

Ming ci scholarship long suffered neglect, and the received view that ci died in the Ming left a vast body of Ming ci scattered across rare editions, manuscripts, and private collections, largely inaccessible to ordinary readers. The value of the Complete Ci of the Ming Dynasty lies precisely in gathering these scattered materials into one compilation: more than 1,390 poets and nearly 20,000 works, arranged by year of birth, each poet given a biographical sketch, each poem with its source noted, the tune title as main heading and a thematic title as subtitle. A single pass through the book brings the full landscape of Ming ci into view, from the early Ming courtly style to the late Ming Yun-jian school, and the patriotic reflections of loyalist poets at the dynastic transition. The work draws heavily on the manuscript of the Xiyin Tang Series while collating rare Ming and Qing editions, follows the editorial conventions of the Complete Song Ci, and provides standardized punctuation and line breaks along with an author index for easy reference. For anyone seeking to overturn the prejudice that Ming ci is unworthy of attention, this is the most direct and reliable large-scale work available; for professional researchers, it is an indispensable foundational text for any discussion of Ming ci scholarship.