《賢奕編》乃明代雜俎小說之代表，是劉元卿文學成就之展現；《應諧錄》從中別裁出版，適證明劉元卿於寓言創作之貢獻。觀《賢奕編》體例，依其內容分為十六類，附錄〈閒鈔〉上下；視其主旨，是從不同角度詮解「賢」的概念，使能獲得讀者共鳴而見賢思齊。是故劉元卿的思想雖本諸王門學派，《賢奕編》的目次是按照儒家修養之次第安排，亦間及博物、釋道、志怪等故事及名物考證，以擴大是書對庶民階層的影響力，藉此實踐其教育理想。因此，本文雖著眼於探討《賢奕編》在明代小說史上的定位，及劉元卿在文學表現上的成就，書中所反映的思想主張和所呈現的教育方式，亦是本文的研究重點，期能給予《賢奕編》一個公允的歷史評價。
”Xian Yi Bian” represents the Za Zu classical short story in Ming Dynasty and it also manifests Liu Yuan-Qing's literature achievement. ”Ying Xie Lu”, an extract from it, verifies Liu Yuan-Qing's contribution to fable creation. As to the style of ”Xian Yi Bian”, it can be divided into 16 categories according to the content, and there is an appendix of ”Xian Cho” at the end of the book. As to its keynote, it annotates the concept of ”Xian” (賢) from different angle for the purpose of attracting the readers and guiding them to follow the examples. Therefore, though the thought of Liu Yuan-Qing deeply rooted in Wang Yang Ming's Doctrine, the contents of ”Xian Yi Bian” are arranged in accordance with the sequence of Confucianism and the book also includes stories about general knowledge, Buddhism, Taoism and mystery as well as textual research, which expands its influence on the level of plebeian and achieves its pedagogic ideal. All in all, although the present study puts emphasis on discussing the historical position of ”Xian Yi Bian” in Ming novel as well as Liu Yuan-Qing's literature achievement, it also aims at exploring the argument and pedagogy that reflect in this book. We hope to provide ”Xian Yi Bian” with a fair historical evaluation.
