Prospective Datasets

China Biographical Database

This database is a relational database containing information of over 360,000 historical figures from 7-19th century China. I will focus on information of those from the Song dynasty. This database is in MS Access format and is open to all users.This database contains a dataset with information about more than 8,800 epistolary connections between Song persons. This dataset is based on 17,957 letters by 611 authors in Quan Song wen (see below).

- Epistolary sources from Quan Song wen (Complete Song Prose)

This is a collection that appeared in print form in 2006. It contains (almost) all epistolary writings by Song writers. A digital collection has been completed in Shanghai in 2013 but has to be purchased. I will have to explore how I can get access to those digital texts. Most of the texts are available on other electronic databases so there may be a way to obtain certain texts even if I cannot access this collection digitally.

-  Data from my previous research on middle period Chinese letters

This includes writer/recipient, dating, geographical, and topical information for letters by a small group of letter writers in the 12th century. This exists in the form of notes from my own reading and needs to be converted into structured data as spreadsheets.

by Lik Hang Tsui