Guitianlu 歸田錄

Guitianlu 歸田錄 "Records after my retirement to the fields" is a "brush-notes"-style book (biji 筆記) with historical background written during the Northern Song period 北宋 (960-1126) by the famous scholar Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007-1072). It was written after Ouyang had retired to his manor in Yingzhou 潁州, where he allegedly lived the life of a peasant in the fields – hence the title.

The oldest bibliography in which the Guitianlu is listed is the official dynastic history Songshi 宋史. It speaks of a length of 8 juan, although the received version has only 2 juan.

The book includes 115 stories from high officials at the court, as well as discussions among them, often with humorous elements, as the story of an old man selling oil (Mai you weng 賣油翁). During the compilation, Ouyang took Li Zhao's 李肇 (876-945) Tang guoshi bu 唐國史補 as a model, except that he did not write negatively about the persons mentioned. Ouyang Xiu has included a lot of things he personally had experienced as a member of the court officialdom. For this reason, his book also has a historiographical value. It was often quoted by later scholars like Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) and Jiang Shaoyu 江少虞 (jinshi degree 1118). Ouyang Xiu also quotes extensively from the poems and prose writings of his protagonists.

The earliest print was produced during the Yuan period 元朝 (1279-1368), as part of the collected writings of Ouyang Xiu, the Ouyang Wenzhong gong ji 歐陽文忠公集. A perfect print with a critial apparatusHanfenlou miji 涵芬樓秘笈). In 1981, the Zhonghua Shuju Press 中華書局 published a modern edition in the series Tang-Song shiliao biji congkan 唐宋史料筆記叢刊, with annotations by Li Weiguo 李偉國. The Guitianlu is also to be found as a facsimile of a Ming-period 明 (1368-1644) print in the series Baihai 稗海, Xuejin taoyuan 學津討原 and Biji xiaoshuo daguan 筆記小說大觀.