The Twenty Four Histories

The Twenty-Four Histories (Chinese: 二十四史; pinyin: Èrshísì Shǐ; Wade–Giles: Erh-shih-szu shih), also known as the Orthodox Histories (Chinese: 正史; pinyin: Zhèngshǐ), 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.^[1]

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.

These works were begun by one historian and completed by an heir, usually of the next generation.

• Records of the Grand Historian, inherited from Sima Tan 司馬談 (father) by Sima Qian 司馬遷 (son)
• Book of Han, inherited from Ban Biao 班彪 (father), Ban Gu (son) by Ban Zhao 班昭 (daughter/sister)
• Book of Liang and Book of Chen, inherited from Yao Cha 姚察 (father) by Yao Silian 姚思廉 (son)
• Book of Northern Qi, inherited from Li Delin 李德林 (father) by Li Baiyao 李百藥 (son)
• History of the Southern Dynasties and History of the Northern Dynasties, inherited from Li Dashi 李大師 (father) by Li Yanshou 李延壽 (son)                                                                                                          source: wikipedia