The
Twenty-Four Histories , also known as the
Standard Histories (zhengshi 正史) 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.