Abstract: The handwritten copy of Sun Qifeng’s Study on the Characters of Zhongzhou is rare in China.It was once collected by Luo Zhenchang and now is collected in the Library of Congress in the UnitedStates. Based on four aspects of verification in terms of taboos observed in manuscript copies textcontent book layout and writing font it can be seen that third volume of this book is a supplementarymaterial and was copied after the Daoguang period 1820 1850 the remaining seven volumes werecopied during the Kangxi period 1661 1722 . Compared with the Daoguang edition the edition which iscollected in the Library of Congress of the United States retains the unofficial historian in the finalcomments of the biographies. The content and accuracy of the biographies are also superior to Daoguangedition and these two editions can complement each other. The edition which was collected in WenyuanPavilion not only deleted the paratext at the beginning of the volume but also had deficiencies in the fouraspects of the number of characters included the content of biographies the order of characters and theuse of words in the biographies. Therefore in terms of text completeness and accuracy it is inferior tothe edition which was collected in the Library of Congress of the United States. As an important form oftranscription during the Kangxi period the Congressional version preserves the early textual features ofthe eight-volume version of Study on the Characters of Zhongzhou thus providing a new sample in thetext transmission and evolution of the book.