Notes on the Second Edition

An Illustrated Account of Common Chinese Characters specifically described the origins and the evolutions of 651 commonly used Chinese characters, listing Chinese characters'shapes from the Oracle-Bone Inscriptions to today's Inscriptions. Each character in the book has an illustration according to its sources so that the readers can easily understand the history of Chinese characters'evolution and the original meaning. This book has been widely welcomed by the readers at home and abroad since its publication in 1997.

In this revision, we did some additions and deletions. Considering the development of Chinese characters'meaning, we appropriately explained some current meanings of these characters. Now, we have the book published in eight sections according to the meaning categories of Chinese characters: human body, organ, instruments, building, animal, plant, natural, and others.

Although the book is a popular book, we insist on explaining the characters' origins in accordance with their uses in classical records. Hence, these volumes not only have some values on Chinese characters research, but also are convenient for the general readers to better understand the origins and the evolutions of Chinese characters.

Department of Chinese Language&Linguistics
Peking University Press
September,2017