China announced that it was ready to publish the 600-volume book series designed to help readers better understand its 24 prime ancient Chinese historical tomes with newly added annotations.

A special ceremony was organized Wednesday in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, to mark the start of the publishing event.

With a budget of 30 million yuan (about US$3.7 million), the book series compilation drew on over 300 veteran scholars, with Zhang Zhenglang, a well-known specialist in historical studies, as compiler in-chief.

However, the book series, which began 11 years ago, are now only half finished.

An official from Bashu Press, a professional publishing house for ancient books and also the publisher of the planned book series, said the entire publishing work would take five years to complete.

Each complete set of the book series will contain 120 million Chinese characters, according to the official.

The 24 prime ancient Chinese historical tomes are historical books all written in the form of biographies by people from different dynasties in ancient China.

The historical books, with 40 million Chinese characters in all, recorded legions of sagas and historical events dating back as early as Yellow Emperor (about 2550 before Christ), and ending at 1644 AD, or the 17th year of the rein of Emperor Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

However, these historical books have proved to be very difficult to understand to common readers due to a lack of necessary annotations about the sagas or historical events mentioned in those books.

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2005)