Stories from a Ming collection
Subtitle: translations of Chinese short stories published in the seventeenth century
By: by Cyril Birch.
Contributors: Birch, Cyril, 1925-
Series: UNESCO collection of representative works
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 1958
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 205
Subjects: Short stories, Chinese -- Translations into English
Work titles: Gu jin xiao shuo.
Description: The popularity of the Chinese storyteller goes back to the marketplace of the T'ang dynasty, but the familiar figure came into its own in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This selection of stories from Feng Menglong's collection, Stories Old and New (originally published in 1624), includes representative types of the storyteller's traditional art. "The Pearl-Sewn Shirt" is a cautionary romance describing the tragedy of a broken marriage; the heroic biography, which depicts a neglected man of high worth gradually receiving recognition, is represented by "Wine and Dumplings"; an authentic twelfth-century forerunner of the detective story is found in "The Canary Murders." The other tales concern traffic in the supernatural, didactic admonitions to observe morality in sex and loyalty in friendship, and realistic accounts of the meanness and corruption of official life. Also includes "The Lady Who Was a Beggar," "The Journey of the Corpse," "The Story of Wu Pao-an," and "The Fairy's Rescue."
Notes: Translations of selections from: Gu jin xiao shuo (romanized) /by Feng Menglong.