num_pages: 192
description: Drawing on local Chinese histories, the memoirs of scholars, and other contemporary writings, Chinese historian Jonathan Spence reconstructs an extraordinary tale of rural tragedy in a remote corner of Shantung province in 17th-century China. Life in the county of T'an-ch'eng emerges as an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry, and heavy taxation. Against this turbulent background a tenacious tax collector, an irascible farmer, and an unhappy wife act out a poignant drama at whose climax the wife, having run away from her husband, returns to him, only to die at his hands.
language: English
title: The Death of Woman Wang
titlecomplete: The Death of Woman Wang
genres: Historical, Literature, History, School, Classics, Asia, College, Read For School, Nonfiction, China
ratings_count: 861
publisher: Penguin Books