Li Taibai wen ji by Li Bai; Wang Qi - 1759

[China]: Bao hu lou, 1759. Sixteen woodblock-printed volumes, all on double leaves, bound in traditional Chinese style with thread, in a later blue folding cloth case. The leaves have all been carefully re-backed, apparently during the Republican era, so that wormholes and other minor areas of loss have been made sturdy; new exterior wrappers were also added to each volume. The blue case bulges somewhat with the thickness of the volumes contained within. While one of the prefaces is dated to the 23rd year of Qianlong, 1758, a date cited for some listings in OCLC, two other prefaces and the last page of the work are dated to the jimao year of Qianlong, or 1759. This set of blocks may have been used for a number of years to print new copies as called for, without any indication of the actual date of printing. The interior title page, which gives the title "Li Qinglian quan ji ji zhu," states that it was printed from the woodblocks stored at Bao hu lou. An important edition of the works of Li Bai, the Tang dynasty poet, also known in English as Li Po.