• Pulinsidun daxue baguwen sichou chenyi (The Princeton eight-legged essays silk shirt)
    普林斯頓大學八股文絲綢襯衣

Publisher:
  • [China : s.n. , [between 1840 and 1905?]
Extent:
  • 1 piece ; box 75 x 61 x 16 cm.
Format:
Description:
  • Title suppied by cataloger.
  • Manuscript on silk cloth.
  • Dates taken from article: Andrew H. Plaks, "Research on the Gest Library "Cribbing Garment": A Very Belated Update", The East Asian Library Journal 11, no. 2 (2004): p. 26, accessed December 3, 2018, http://library.princeton.edu/eastasian/EALJ/plaks_andrew_h.ealj.v11.n02.p001.pdf.
  • Original Gest Oriental Library collection, GM160.
Subject:
Edm rights:
  • No Known Copyright
View in catalog:
Curator's notes:

  • Classical Chinese
    China, after 1840, silk

    Written texts mention a period when light, but expensive, written silk scrolls existed alongside bamboo slips. In the Princeton University Library, we have no such early examples, but we do have this 19th-century garment, with more than half a million miniature characters. The text is made of more than 700 “eight-legged” exemplary essays, widely used as preparation for the civil examinations. Persistent rumors call this a “cribbing” garment, but it could not have been used that way; perhaps candidates wore it to be inspired?

    Photograph by Heather Larkin, 2004

    Gest Collection, JQ1512.Z13 E878

    For further reading

    Plaks, Andrew H. “Research on the Gest Library ‘Cribbing Garment’: a very belated update.” East Asian Library Journal 11, no. 2 (2004): 1-39. Accessed May 20, 2025. https://library.princeton.edu/eastasian/EALJ/plaks_andrew_h.EALJ.v11.n02.p001.pdf

Exhibit category: