"Back to the Past (Illustrated Edition)"

Author: Lu Xun
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-06-01
Features: This is a collection of short recollections by Lu Xun, including ten essays written between 1928 and 1928. It features works such as "The Dog, the Cat, and the Rat," "A Long and a Short Story," "The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars," "The Ghost of the Inevitable," and "From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Study." This collection gathers ten of Lu Xun's recollective essays written in 1926. The first five were written in Beijing, while the last five were composed in Xiamen. Initially, they were published under the title "Retelling Old Tales" in the bimonthly magazine Mangyuan. In July 1927, Lu Xun revised and expanded the collection in Guangzhou, adding an "Introduction" and a "Postscript," renaming it Morning Blossoms Plucked at Dusk. It was first published in September 1928 by Beijing's Weiming Publishing House as part of Lu Xun's Weiming New Collection. A second edition was released in February 1929. The third edition, published in September 1932, was rearranged and published by Shanghai Beishu Press. The cover was illustrated by Tao Yuanching. These ten essays are "narrative recollections" (Three Idle Collections, Autobiographical Selection preface), providing a relatively complete record of Lu Xun's life from childhood to youth, vividly depicting the social scenes of the late Qing and early Republican era. They serve as an important artistic document for studying Lu Xun's early thoughts, life, and the society of that time. The prose is profound and enduring, making it a classic in modern Chinese literature.
Regarding the translation of this book, Lu Xun wrote in a letter to Tetsuo Masuda on April 11, 1934: "If Morning Blossoms Plucked at Dusk is to be published, it would be good to translate it, but there are too many references to Chinese customs and trivial matters in it. Without annotations, it may be difficult to understand, and too many annotations would make it tedious to read." In a letter to Tetsuo Masuda on December 2, 1934, Lu Xun mentioned that when Masuda and Haruo Sato co-translated Selected Works of Lu Xun, they should translate only "Mr." and include it, while "Fan A'ning" was poorly written and should be omitted. Several essays from this collection, such as "From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Study," "Mr.," and "Fan A'ning," have been selected for middle school Chinese textbooks.