Quiping Mountain Hall Story Collection

Author: Hong Bian
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-09-01
Features: The Qingping Mountain Hall Colloquial Stories truly preserves the original appearance of colloquial stories from the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. The works within are folk tales, with relatively simple and superficial thoughts, and not particularly high in taste or literary quality. The language is brief and rough. However, it is authentic, offering a perspective from the eyes of ordinary people in the bustling streets, presenting an artistic realm of folk culture that is entirely different from the refined literary culture of poetry and prose. Outstanding works include The Story of Li Cuilian and the Book-Lover and The Monastery of the Simple Note, both of which have unique styles and are highly captivating. The Qingping Mountain Hall Colloquial Stories is a collection that records colloquial stories from the Song, Yuan, and Ming periods, being the earliest published collection of such stories. It was originally titled Sixty Novels. In the 1920s and 1930s, Mr. Ma Lian and Mr. A Ying successively discovered the manuscript of this book, obtaining twenty-nine stories, and named it The Qingping Mountain Hall Colloquial Stories. "Qingping Mountain Hall" was the name of the hall of Hong Fen, a Qiantang native during the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty.