冯梦龙
Feng Menglong collected and slightly modified works from the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, such as changing characters’ names and locations to make stories more contemporary. The writing style of the series of stories is written vernacular, or "baihua", the everyday language of people at that time. The 40 stories are divided into 3 sections, one section collects Song and Yuan dynasty tales, one collects Ming dynasty stories, and the last is the stories created by Feng Menglong himself. The success of "Stories Old and New" published (1620), also known as "Yushi Mingyan" ("Illustrious Words to Instruct the World") led Feng to edit and publish "JIngshi Tongyan" ("Stories to Caution the World") in 1624, and "Xingshi Hengyan" ("Stories to Awaken the World") in 1627. Each collection contained forty stories. The title of each collection ended with the word "yan" (word), so they are often referred to as a group: Sanyan (). The stories in these three books are in a format called Huaben (话本), a novella or short novel.