Souls in Private Libraries in Suzhou

Suzhou, an ancient city in Jiangsu province and best known across the country with Hangzhou as paradise on earth since time immemorial, is well known among Chinese literati for its private libraries. These private libraries, though small in size, have played in important role in the Chinese culture.

The city in southern Jiangsu used to have a lot of narrow and deep alleys. It is in these narrow alleys that scholars and rich business people lived and private libraries once existed.

Jin Kan (?-1703)

Jin Kan, a painter and scholar of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), used to live in Shuanglin Alley. The alley is probably best known for two brothers in the Ming Dynasty and two brothers in the Qing Dynasty who both succeeded in imperial examinations. The sites of these brotherly scholars are gone today, but Jin Kan’s library remains in a three-row house compound. The library is called Spring Grass Leisure House. Jin’s greatest passion was to scribe ancient books. Well kept in the private library for centuries, all his handwritten books are now reliable texts (good editions) in the collection of the China National Library.

Huang Pilie (1763-1825)

After succeeding in the imperial examination and a short court official career, Huang Pilie settled down in Suzhou. His burning passion was to collect books printed in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). In his lifetime he managed to purchase nearly 200 books printed in the Song. These antique books were very expensive even in the years between the late Ming and the early Qing. For example, Huang spent 80 liang of gold on the “Intrigues of the Warring States” printed in the Song. It was a huge fortune at that time, for, comparatively, a teacher working to teach a few kids in a private family school earned only about 0.2 liang of silver per month and 100 kg of rice cost about two liang of silver. No one knows exactly how much it cost Huang Pilie to build up his collection of the Song books. However, the Song books in Huang’s collection began to appear on the market in the last years of the Emperor Jiaqing and all the reliable texts from the library were purchased by Wang Shizhong.

The Gu Family

The Silver Vase Alley in Suzhou vanished in an urban improvement project more than 10 years ago, but the books that four consecutive generations of the Gu family did their best to keep remain. The family, best reputed in the past for its collection of antique paintings and calligraphic works, kept its collection of books as a secret for hundreds of years. It is said that the Gus had a secret room especially dedicated to the collection. The secret is the very reason that the collection survived. At a 2005 national auction, 500 books from the collection was purchased for 23.10 million yuan by a mysterious buyer. In the early 1990s, Nanjing Library bought 541 titles of the Gu collection. Today, there is a special exhibition room at the library where visitors can see the books.

Wang Wenchen and Wang Shizhong

Wang Wenchen chose to settle in Suzhou after he made a huge fortune in dry goods. Like their fellow successful businessmen from Anhui, the father and the son wanted to build up a private library in the traditional belief that books were better than gold. The library expanded when the son took it over. When the four major private collections in Suzhou during the years of the Emperor Qianlong and Emperor Jiaqing appeared on the market, Wang Shizhong bought them all. The books in Wang’s library began to change hands during the years of the Emperor Xianfeng.

Shen Bingcheng and his Garden of Couple’s Retreat

Shen Bingcheng (1823-1895) was a native of Zhejiang Province. After becoming a metropolitan graduate in 1865, he was successful in his career as a high-ranking official. After he retired to Suzhou, he had the garden built. The garden is now on the list of the UNESCO’s world cultural heritage sites for its delicate architectural style and cultural treasures.

Shen Bingcheng, with a passion for books and art, built up a large private collection of books, paintings, seals and calligraphic works at the garden. The books in his library numbered more than 10,000. After Shen passed away, scholars still came to read his books and held academic discussions in his garden. The collection is gone today, but the garden still radiates charms of culture.

The Pan Family

In Suzhou the Pans was both a prominent family of officials and a prominent family of books. More than 10 family members of six generations built seven private libraries individually or jointly. This is probably the most legendary episode in the history of private libraries in the country. Over a course of one hundred years, the libraries came one after another or simultaneously. The first two libraries were damaged during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864). The last two libraries were built by two brothers with a joint collection of 300,000 books. The books of the Pangxizhai Library and Baoshanlou Library are now housed in the Shanghai Library. In fact, they are the most precious books the Shanghai Library has.

The Pangxizhai Library, one of the last two libraries, was founded and owned by Pan Zuyin (1830-1890), who served as a top-ranking minister in the Qing Dynasty. After retiring to Suzhou in 1883, he asked a scholar named Ye Changzhi to sort out the treasures in his private library.As he had been a high-ranking official in the capital for a long while, Pan had easy access to classic titles. Ye was amazed by the rare books such as those printed in the Song and Yuan dynasties in Pan’s possession. The books from Pangxizhai were donated to Shanghai Library on July 1951. These books, in a large quantity, are classified as national grade.