Whether Extant Edition of New Anecdotes of the Tang Dynasty is a Pseudograph:A Re-examination

This paper argues that Wu Guanwen's conclusions in her recent papers discussing authenticity of the extant edition of New Anecdotes of the Tang Dynasty (NATD) are not tenable. With a detailed study of NATD and Tang Shu Xin Yu, we find a direct relationship in between: Tang Shu Xin Yu quotes much from NATD. Or rather, they are the same book. It is a comprehensive examination of the citations of NATD in the literature from the Song Dynasty up to the early Ming Dynasty that enables us to see that the original edition of NATD is identical with the extant one both in entries and in wording. Put it another way, we fail to find any paragraph from a book other than NATD,which is but an alternative title of Tang Shi Shuo Xin Yu in its own history. Consequently, the conclusion that NATD is a pseudograph is completely untenable.