Rare Books and Manuscripts

Family admonitions written by Zeng Guofan

The rare books and manuscripts sales gained 87 million yuan. Books and letters by literati performed well, as evidenced by the rising prices and expanding market size.

The big successes included a manuscript by Gu Yanwu (1613-1682), a prestigious thinker of the later Ming Dynasty. It sold for 31.62 million yuan. Family admonitions written by Zeng Guofan, an eminent Chinese official and military general from the late Qing Dynasty, sold for 2.3 million yuan, about 20 times higher than its pres-sale estimate. Also, his 130-page letters to his brother Zeng Guoquan sold for 3.56 million yuan, and a manuscript by Lu Xun (1881-1936), one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century, sold for 6.9 million yuan.