Ye Dehui
Ye Dehui was a Chinese writer and editor active during the Qing dynasty and the Republican Era. Vacillating between academia, business, and civil service in his early life, Ye eventually established himself as a leading bibliophile and literatus. He was executed by the local government for his alleged counter-revolutionism.
Early life
Ye was born in 1864 in Changsha, Hunan. He was the son of a government official in Hebei. After passing his entry-level imperial examinations, Ye briefly pursued a career in business, becoming a successful trader with interests in rice, salt, and textiles. In 1892, he obtained the jinshi degree. The same year, he became a secretary at the Board of Civil Office but found the job unsatisfying and quit after a few months.Career
As an editor and publisher, Ye is known for his Shuangmei jing’an congshu, which collects four Chinese medical classics on sexual cultivation that had been partially preserved in the Ishinpō: the Sunü jing; Yufang mijue; Yufang zhiyao; and Dongxuan zi. First published in 1907, Ye's anthology "outraged" the Chinese public, although it was later described in the 1950s by Joseph Needham as "the greatest Chinese sexological collection".Ye was one of the most prolific collectors of rare books and manuscripts in China. In 1910, he published a guide to book-collecting and in 1915, he released a catalogue of the 350,000-odd volumes in his personal collection. Ye also occasionally tried his hand at prose and poetry.