This paper brings to light the composition and bibliographical characteristics of the woodblocks used to publish Yunjidangyugo(允摯堂遺稿), the work compiled and published by Unho Im Jeongju. Unho Im Jeongju(任靖周, 1727∼1796) was a Neo-Confucian scholar in Yeongjo’s and Jeongjo’s reign of Joseon, whose academic origins lay in the late Joseon Yulgok faction’s semiotics branch of cosmo-ontology. His teacher was his second older brother Nokmun Im Seongju while his elder sister Im Yunjidang was his academic companion. He re-edited the original manuscript of Yunjidangyugo left to him by Im Yunjidang, and published it with the woodblocks he had formed to publish Collected Works of Nokmun(Nokmunseonsaengmunjib).
The woodblock types were created mainly by Im Jeongju with the primary purpose of publishing Collected Works of Nokmun. He composed them in Cheongsanhyeon during what is estimated as between the thirteenth year and the nineteenth year of King Jeongjo’s reign (1789∼1795) when Im Jeongju was serving as governor there. Consequently, the woodblock types were named “Im Jeongju Woodblocks” after their composer.
An examination of the bibliographical characteristics of the “Im Jeongju Woodblocks” used in the publication of Yunjidangyugo reveals that the classical Chinese particle samples ji(之), bul(不), ghi(其), wi(爲), i(而), ya(也), ho(乎), i(以) and jae(㦲) were based on Yan Zhenqing‘s writing, skillfully reviving its characteristics. However, the character eo(於) does not use the simplified phono-semantic character as often used by Yan Zhenqing. Also, the last left-falling stroke of the character i(而) and the long right-falling stroke on the right side of the character jae(㦲) show great virtuosity. There are three original calligraphic styles in Im Jeongju’s writing. First, he shows virtuosity in elongating the vertical strokes or right-falling strokes and lifting the edge ever so slightly, as he does with characters such as chig(則), ssi(氏), min(民), a(我) and i(已). Secondly, he creates two unique kinds of writing by composing his own stroke order for the character pil(必) rather than following the original order. Thirdly, he avoided making the characters similar when several dots in the character lined up and so marked some dots in the opposite layout or changed the direction of the strokes as he did with the characters an(顔), sol(率) and others, and he omitted the last stroke for the left additional element yo(幺) when forming the character rak(樂) while writing the character eung(凝) as a variant form.
This study will henceforward be used in the basic studies of bibliography as well as in those of the history of printing culture and folk woodblock printing.