Zhonghuá-edition. First edition. Chinese text. The Twenty-Four Histories: pinyin: Èrshísì Shi; Wade-Giles: Erh-shih-szu shih, also known as the Orthodox Histories: pinyin: Zhèngshi, are the Chinese official historical books covering a period from 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century. The Han dynasty official Sima Qian established many of the conventions of the genre, but the form was not fixed until much later. Starting with the Tang dynasty, each dynasty established an official office to write the history of its predecessor using official court records. As fixed and edited in the Qing dynasty, the whole set contains 3213 volumes and about 40 million words. It is considered one of the most important sources on Chinese history and culture. The title "Twenty-Four Histories" dates from 1775 which was the 40th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. This was when the last volume, the History of Ming was reworked and a complete set of the histories produced. Content: 1 Records of the Grand historian 2 Book of Han 3 Book of Later Han 4 Book of Jin 5 Book of Song 6 Book of Liang 7 Book of Northern Qi 8 History of the Southern Dynasties 9 History of the Northern Dynasties 10-11 Old book of Tang 12 New Book of Tang 13 Old history of the Five Dynasties 14-16 History of Song 17 History of Liao 18 Yuan Dynasty 19-20 Ming Dynasty