Bibliotheca Sinica Christiana

Book excerpt: The present work is a comprehensive catalog of publications that were produced and printed by the Divine Word Missionaries (Societas Verbi Divini, S.V.D.) in Shandong province, China. It was compiled by the late Prof. Dr. Roman Malek, S.V.D. (1951–2019), an internationally renowned expert for the history of Christianity in China and former director and editor-in-chief of the Monumenta Serica Institute (MSI) in Sankt Augustin, Germany. The catalog comprises nearly 400 entries, arranged in alphabetical order according to the original titles, in Chinese, German or Latin, and occasionally in English. Each entry provides detailed bibliographical information, excerpts from the book information included in the contemporary editions of the Catalogus Librorum of the S.V.D. Mission Press, a short explanation in English on the respective title and a Table of Contents. The S.V.D. publications cover a broad range of fields, including apologetic and catechetical material, e.g., reprints of works of the old China mission, books for teaching the faith and prayer books; biblical materials, i.e., translations from and works on the Bible; educational material, such as textbooks for the schools run by the S.V.D. in Shandong; dictionaries and grammars for Chinese, German and Latin; Catholic periodicals; books on Chinese culture; hymn books; and finally, materials for evangelization (posters, pictures, etc.). The Bibliotheca Sinica Christiana makes an important contribution to documenting the printing activities of a specific Catholic missionary society, the S.V.D., in China in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It aims at stimulating further research into the S.V.D. China mission and into the history of religious printing in the modern era in China at large.