Shuoling 說鈴

Shuoling 說鈴 "Story chimes" is a series of collectanea (congshu 叢書) compiled by the Qing-period 清 (1644-1911) scholar Wu Zhenfang 吳震方 (fl. 1694), courtesy name Qingtan 青壇. He hailed from Shimen 石門, Hunan, and was the author of the books Zhuzi lunding wenchao 朱子論定文抄 and Dushu zhengyin 讀書正音. The collection Shuoling includes 62 texts with a total length of 83 juan.

Most texts were written during the early Qing period and belong to the genre of biji 筆記 "brush notes" style texts, including stories of the "hearsay" (jianwenlu 見聞錄) type, diaries and travel reports. The title is derived from a sentence in Yang Xiong's 揚雄 (53 BCE-18 CE) Fayan 法言 from the Han period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) where good stories that do not belong to the Confucian writings are called "story chimes", comparing them with ordinary music not used during great state ceremonies.

The collection is divided into three parts, of which the greatest is the "first collection" (Qianji 前集) that includes 38 titles, while the "later collection" (Houji 後集) and the "subsequent collection" (Xuji 續集) are much shorter. The texts are arranged according a coherent principle. Most editions of the series do not include the Xuji collection. The most important version is that from 1702 (the Xuji was only printed in 1712). The Shanghai Library 上海圖書館 owns an later edition printed by the Juxiu Hall 聚秀堂 in 1879.