Although I don't know whether this book is useful for Chinese people or not, I think it is one of the most important and fundamental resources to study 明朝体(i.e. 宋体)活字 in Japan. You can see 23 明朝体 typefaces per each 漢字 at a glance, from 五車韻府 (1820) to 朝日新聞社漢字基本調査表 (1946), so it is easy to compare these shapes. It also provides the glyphs of 道光版康煕字典 (1831) and 修訂版大漢和辞典 (1986) for your information. (Frankly speaking, there is a little inconvenience to look up a character in this book...)You can see some photos of the contents here:http://d.hatena.ne.jp/elmikamino/20080418/1208518863