Misquoting the ancients

Abstract The Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 [Kangxi Dictionary] was without doubt the most influential and widely used dictionary in China during the past three centuries, and its impact on education, scholarship, and intellectual life in general, cannot be overstated. The dictionary’s compilation was a major step in the development of Chinese lexicography, and it has been at the foundation of all large dictionary projects ever since. This paper addresses the editors’ tendency to misquote and misattribute quotations, which has been among the most commonly criticized issues. My aim here is not to identify further mistakes but to document the patterns of misquotations, as these can help understand the process of the dictionary’s compilation. One noteworthy find is that in many cases members of the editorial team quoted their sources indirectly, relying on more recent encyclopedias and miscellanea.