Five Hundred()

Author: Zhang Bing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Following the flourishing of Tang poetry, Song lyrics, and Yuan qu (quyi), fiction in the Ming and Qing dynasties blossomed into a grand spectacle, featuring a wide range of content and diverse styles, vibrant and colorful. However, among the vast ocean of Ming and Qing fiction, due to scattered collections, complex versions, and numerous private holdings, it is not an easy task to examine them all. This book aims to present the authentic nature of Ming and Qing fiction by carefully selecting 500 works from the vast number of available titles, encompassing both public and private collections and covering all major schools. The selected novels span from the Ming Hongwu era (1368) to the end of the late Qing year 1911 (the end of the Xinhai Revolution in the lunar calendar). Some collections of vernacular tales from the Ming Dynasty, which include individual stories from the Song and Yuan periods, such as Sixty Novels, are also included. Works published before the Qing Xuantong era (1911) are included even if completed and published during the Republican period, such as The Sealed Case of Guo Gong with an Imprinted Seal. The book covers all genres of Ming and Qing fiction, such as historical romances, heroic legends, supernatural tales, social realism, martial heroism, satire, erotic fiction, and moral condemnation; as well as various literary forms, including vernacular long novels, vernacular short stories, and classical prose notes. Some erotic novels, which occupy a significant portion of Ming and Qing fiction and are an indispensable part of social realism, hold an important place in the development of Ming and Qing fiction. To reflect the overall picture of Ming and Qing fiction, this book includes them in appropriate quantities. Each selected novel in the book provides information on its version and transmission, along with a summary of its plot, intending to help enthusiasts of Ming and Qing fiction understand the general landscape and stylistic features of the genre. The book serves as both a reference tool for classical literature scholars and a source for general readers to explore and appreciate Ming and Qing fiction.