Dream Pool Essays

Timeline

1. c. 1086–1088Mengxi Garden, Runzhou · ZhenjiangShen Kuo moved from Muzhou and other places to Runzhou, developing Mengxi Garden, where he organized observations from his official posts, astronomical records, and craft knowledge into categorized notes, forming the writing site of Dream Pool Essays.
2. c. 1088–1093Runzhou · ZhenjiangThe main text was completed around this time; sections on techniques and numerology recorded Bi Sheng's movable type and observations such as the compass's slight eastward deviation, making the notes a compendium of eleventh-century craft and natural knowledge.
3. 1101–1301Jiangnan bookshops and libraries · JiangnanFrom the Southern Song to the Yuan, the notes were transcribed and printed among scholar circles; the twenty-six-juan structure with the supplementary and continued essays gradually stabilized, becoming a commonly used source for studying Northern Song institutions and crafts.
4. 1901East Asian and international history-of-science circles · ChinaCritical annotations by Hu Daojing and works on the history of science by Joseph Needham positioned it as a milestone of Chinese scientific notes; its records of movable type and magnetic declination entered global narratives of printing history and geomagnetism.