Guangming Daily reporter Li Yuan Zhang Feng

"The first batch of books launched in Wuhan Context has a total of 21 kinds and 0 volumes, mainly based on the old chronicles of Wuhan, which will provide great convenience for related research and utilization, and the launch of the first batch of results is undoubtedly a good start." Recently, at the press conference of the first batch of compilation and publication results of the "Wuhan Context" integrated publishing project, Ma Min, editor-in-chief of "Wuhan Context" and professor of Central China Normal University, said.

The purpose of "Wuhan Context" is to comprehensively find out the background of local literature in Wuhan, sort out the context of urban cultural development, and establish a complete historical literature and data. The project plans to spend 21 years to comprehensively and systematically sort out Wuhan's local literature resources, and form a database of Wuhan's historical and cultural resources and integrated publishing products, of which no less than 0 paper books will be compiled and published. The first batch of 0 kinds and 0 volumes of illustrated books were published, marking the phased results of the largest literature collation, research and publication project in Wuhan's history.

According to reports, the publication of the "[Kangxi] Huguang Wuchang Mansion Chronicles" is based on the Japanese cabinet library, which is the first printing, compared with the editions collected by other institutions around the world, the preface and the text are complete, and the strokes are clear, which is particularly precious.

In addition to several local chronicles, the first batch of achievements of "Wuhan Cultural Context" also included "Wenjin Yuan Chronicles" and "Dabie Mountain Chronicles".

In order to enable readers to better understand the content of the books, Wuhan Wenmai invited Zhou Rong, director of the Department of Ancient Books of Wuhan University Library, to organize relevant scholars to write summaries for each book, so as to reveal the author's life, the beginning and end of the compilation, the characteristics of the content and the source of the edition, etc., so as to reproduce the original appearance and complete information of the collected books to the greatest extent.

Experts attending the meeting believed that Fang Zhi is an encyclopedia of a place, which has the role of "information and administration, education, and preservation of history". However, there are few copies of the chronicles of the past dynasties in Wuhan, and the collection is extremely scattered, and a considerable part of them have become solitary, fragmentary and precious. Due to the need to protect the cultural relics of ancient books, most of these rare books are rare to see, so their documentary value has gradually disappeared, which has caused great difficulties in research and utilization. Starting from the rescue, protection and utilization, "Wuhan Cultural Context" incorporates the chronicles of the past dynasties into the "Literature Edition" for photocopying and publishing, which is really commendable.

At the press conference, Wuhan Publishing Group presented the first batch of books of "Wuhan Cultural Context" to the National Library, Hubei Provincial Library, Wuhan Library and Wuhan University Library.

　　《光明日報》（2025年04月14日 09版）

Source: Guangming Network - "Guangming Daily"