From: loos@amber.mgh.harvard.edu (William D.B. Loos)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Ballad of Lost C'Mell
Date: 7 Apr 92 06:39:00 GMT
Organization: Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Apr05.215954.498@edsi.plexus.COM>, terry@edsi.plexus.COM (Terry Dawson) writes...
>loos@amber.mgh.harvard.edu (William D.B. Loos) writes:
> 
>>In the Asimov & Greenberg collection of Best Sf for 1962 (or whatever the 
>>precise title is) the introduction to  The Ballad of Lost C'Mell  quotes
>>Smith/Linebarger as saying that the story was based on "...some of the
>>magical and conspiratorial scenes of the _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_
>>by Lo Kuanchung, written during the 14th century ... ".  
> 
>The story's introduction in the collection _The Best of Cordwainer
>Smith_ gives virtually the same quote, though the author's name as given
>as Lo Kuan-chung.  
>

As it turns out, that hyphen was what made the difference.  The Hollis system
had turned up nothing for Lo Kuanchung but once people pointed out the correct
spelling of the name I found that a number of translations into various 
languages exist.  Further information:

_Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ was a famous early example of what we would 
call popular fiction (or "vernacular" fiction).  It was one of two examples 
which appeared during the late Yuan/early Ming dynasty period (late 1300's), 
both of which apparently were scorned by the intellectual elite but which 
nevertheless found readers in a fairly literate population.  Both works are 
attributed to Lo Kuan-chang, but it's not clear at all that he actually wrote 
either of them.  It seems it's far more likely (since both works exist in a 
number of widely divergent forms) that both "evolved" as the works of a series 
of editors and writers.  Lo Kuan-chung may well have contributed, or perhaps 
merely pulled them together.

Both have been translated into English a number of times.  _Romance of the 
Three Kingdoms_ was described as an "historical narrative".  The title of the
other work has been translated as either "The Story of the Water Margin" or
"All Men are Brothers"  (close, aren't they?).  This one was described as a
"semi-historical picaresque novel", and seems to have been a loosely connected
set of tales and anecdotes about a group of "enlightened bandits".  It was 
translated in 1933 by Pearl S. Buck (under the "All Men are Brothers" title, 
I think).  Neither work was short.  The first (the translation runs to two 
volumes) has around 120 chapters, the second around 100.

[Most of the above information is from the Encyclopedia Britanica.]


===============================================================================
                           |  "And that, I may tell you beforehand, Maskull,"
                           | said Krag, grinning, "is Crystalman's trump card."
William D.B. Loos          |  "How do you mean?"
                           |  "You'll see.  You'll renounce the world so 
loos@frodo.mgh.harvard.edu | eagerly that you'll want to stay in the world 
                           | merely to enjoy your sensations."
                           |             -- David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus
===============================================================================