8vo (150 × 245 mm). 248 pp. Blind-ruled English calf binding (1841-50) by Clarke & Bedford, with title on spine ("Chinese Printed Book"), inner dentelles, upper and lower page-edges all gilt, endpapers contemporary to binding. Binding shows light signs of wear, spine and edges rubbed, overall good. Incomplete, with a few missing pages; even browning to text block, a few minor holes and repairs. A cluster of wormholes along upper inner margin through the volume, largely marginal though sometimes touching the text. Overall clear and legible, illustrations clean and crisp.

This volume is a typical product of the vibrant and competitive commercial publishing industry in late Ming China. Various editions competed in a market that was extending beyond the male, educated elite to reach a much wider segment of the Chinese populace. The text is richly illustrated, in "image above, text below" (shàng tú xiàwén) format, with a picture at the top of every page above thirteen columns of text. This layout was typical of Jianyang in Fujian province, an important centre for printing.

The Water Margin circulated in both "full" (fán běn) and "simple" (jiǎn běn) recensions, the former focusing on literary sophistication, the latter more on entertainment value, with simplified prose, but a greater number of episodes related. This edition falls into the "simple" category, and furthermore is proclaimed in the title to be augmented with material on Tian Hu and Wang Qing, bringing the total number of chapters to 120, whereas other versions contain only 100 or 70 chapters. This volume covers chapters 40-64 of the base text.

A tale of noble outlaws resisting corrupt authority, the Water Margin became an enduring favourite, spreading throughout China and Asia more broadly. Although traditionally attributed to Shi Nai'an or Luo Guanzhong in the earlier part of the Ming dynasty in the fourteenth century, the first secure external reference to the text does not appear until 1524. Moreover, the classic Chinese novel could be endlessly reshaped and repackaged by later authors, editors and publishers. This simplified, augmented and illustrated edition represents a crucial stage of this process, moreover one that speaks to the resounding popularity of the work that would make it a classic for centuries to come.

This edition of the Water Margin only survives in one copy, a set which appears in the catalogue of the Amsterdam bookseller Cornelis Claesz in 1605 and which was sold to Petrus Merula (Paul van Merle), university librarian of Leiden. Only four other volumes are known, in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, the Kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen, the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart, plus a fragment of a single leaf in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the private collection of Chinese scholar Ai Junchuan.

An outstandingly rare and early copy of one of the enduring classics of Chinese literature.

Provenance: part of a set originally purchased in the Netherlands in 1605 from Cornelis Claesz of Amsterdam by Petrus Merula, university librarian of Leiden. Early French ink inscription at head of first leaf (late 17th/18th c.), later crossed through. English binding from 1840s. According to seller's note, found in a bookshop in southwest England. Latterly in a French private collection.

Scott W. Gregory, Bandits in Print: The Water Margin and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel (Cornell UP, 2023). Bert van Selm, "Cornelis Claesz's 1605 stock catalogue of Chinese books", Quaerendo 13.4 (1983).