Genre compositionshare
Share of prefaces and postscripts
Share of own works that are prefaces, postscripts or farewell prefaces (序跋類), by century.
3.0%of own works are prefaces and postscripts
Key point
Prefaces and postscripts are 3.0% of own works: under 2% through the 16th century except the 13th (3.3%), then 4.6% in the 18th and 5.6% in the 19th.
- Formula
- Preface works / own works
- Caveats
- Many are prefaces to other people's books, which relates to the range of the author's acquaintances (not interpreted here).
- Reliability card
- exactExact count — read straight from the source XML
Classification quality: a stratified sample of 300 own works (major class × century) was blind-coded from titles; 97.3% agree with the ITKC major class (Wilson 95% 94.8%–98.6%; 3 undecided counted as disagreement; a second coder re-coded 30 of them blind with 97% agreement). Known block error: 284 works of 湖陰雜稿 (ITKC_MO_0126A) filed as 冊文類 carry poem titles; they are left as classified and noted here.
| Century | Works | Own works | By works | By characters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9th century | 1 | 389 | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| 12th century | 15 | 2,130 | 0.7% | 1.1% |
| 13th century | 43 | 1,309 | 3.3% | 7.1% |
| 14th century | 242 | 12,768 | 1.9% | 7.1% |
| 15th century | 523 | 35,198 | 1.5% | 5.5% |
| 16th century | 2,408 | 139,356 | 1.7% | 3.6% |
| 17th century | 4,436 | 198,054 | 2.2% | 3.7% |
| 18th century | 6,875 | 150,496 | 4.6% | 5.4% |
| 19th century | 3,858 | 69,085 | 5.6% | 6.8% |
| birth year unknown | 10 | 709 | 1.4% | 3.3% |