Records of Gleaned Trifles 拾遗记
Paul PengRecords of Gleaned Trifles
Compiled by Wang Jia of the Jin Dynasty.
Wang Jia, courtesy name Zinian, was a native of Anyang in Longxi, and a famous Taoist Priest of the Louguan Dao school during the Eastern Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms period.
The original book had nineteen volumes, which were abridged and revised into ten volumes by Xiao Qi of the Liang Dynasty.
Records of Gleaned Trifles
The surviving editions include versions from Ancient and Modern Unofficial Histories, the Series of Books from the Han Dynasty and Wei Dynasties, and the modern collated and annotated edition by Qi Zhiping.The first nine volumes record strange anecdotes, foreign customs and products from successive dynasties, from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the Western Jin and Later Zhao dynasties. The recorded figures and events are all myths and legends, and the book "mostly involves content of auspicious omens, and extensively collects stories of immortals".
Volume 10 records immortal mountains and islands such as Kunlun, Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou, rendering exotic scenery and rare objects, interspersed with records of immortal figures. With rich literary grace and magnificent imagination, the whole book is indeed a superior work of Taoism zhiguai (supernatural) novels in the Six Dynasties. Therefore, the General Catalogue of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries commented that this book is "an inexhaustible source of materials for poets of later generations".
