Qijiu xuwen 耆舊續聞

Qijiu xuwen 耆舊續聞, full title Xitang ji qijiu xuwen 西塘集耆舊續聞 „[Master] Western-Dam’s collection of sayings of the ancient“, is a collection of stories compiled during the Song period by Chen Hu 陳鵠 (early 13th cent.), about whose life nothing is known apart from that he lived after the Kaixi reign-period 開禧. Xitang 西塘 is the author’s style. This book of 10 juajn is not listed in Song-period bibliographies and appears only in the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao, where it is classified among the fiction category (xiaoshuojia 小說家). Its content recounts stories from the Northern Song capital Bianjing 汴京 (Kaifeng 開封) and, following the southward migration of the dynasty, the words and deeds of notable figures. Most are old anecdotes, collected from other books or people’s accounts. Nevertheless, the work is relatively objective. Beneath each entry, notes are added indicating the cited book or the informant's name. Although it mainly consists of miscellaneous talk and trivial anecdotes, and sometimes contains coarse or vulgar expressions, some materials still possess useful reference value. The text is included in the series Siku quanshu 四庫全書, Zhibuzuzhai congshu 知不足齋叢書 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編.