Twenty-Four Histories

*Twenty-Four Histories*
Twenty-Four Histories
Chinese	二十四史
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Èrshísì shǐ
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	Ji6sap6sei3 Si2
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ	Jī-cha̍p-sì-sú (col.); Jī-si̍p-sù-sú (lit.)

The Twenty-Four Histories, also known as the Orthodox Histories (正史; Zhèngshǐ), are a collection of official histories detailing the dynasties of China, from the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in the 4th millennium BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century.

The Han dynasty official Sima Qian established many of the conventions of the genre, but the form was not fixed until much later. Starting with the Tang dynasty, each dynasty established an official office to write the history of its predecessor using official court records, partly in order to establish its own link to the earliest times. As fixed and edited in the Qing dynasty, the whole set contains 3,213 volumes and about 40 million words. It is considered one of the most important sources on Chinese history and culture.^[1]

The title "Twenty-Four Histories" dates from 1775, which was the 40th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. This was when the last volume, the History of Ming, was reworked and a complete set of the histories was produced.

^ Ch 49, "Standard Histories", in Endymion Wilkinson. Chinese History: A New Manual. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 2012). ISBN 9780674067158. Also see "Standard Histories"

[1] Ch 49, "Standard Histories", in Endymion Wilkinson. Chinese History: A New Manual. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 2012). ISBN 9780674067158. Also see "Standard Histories"

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