83 (196).

84 (199).

85 (209).

86 (219).

87 (246).

88 (250).

89 (251).

90 (253).

91 (255).

92 (256).

93 (259).

94 (261).

95 (296).

96 (332).

97 (401).

98 (408).

99 (409).

100 (438).

101 (442).

102 (455).

103 (458).

104 (250b)

Further Reading

There are now several detailed studies of Strange Tales in Western languages to which the reader can turn. I recommend the excellent study by Judith T. Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale (Stanford, 1993), which is both scholarly and lively in its insights. The reader wishing to delve more deeply into the complicated textual history of the book is well served by Allan Barr in his series of articles. A complete annotated French translation by Andre Levy will soon be published by Picquier.

IN CHINESE.

Modern Editions, Modern Chinese Translations and Works of Reference (arranged chronologically) Zhang Youhe (ed.), Liaozhai zhiyi huijiao huizhu huiping ben (Beijing, 1962; repr. Shanghai, 1978). The standard Variorum edition, with traditional commentaries.

Yan Weiqing and Zhu Qikai (eds.), Liaozhai zhiyi xuan (Ji'nan, 1984). Selections.

Liu Liemao et al. (eds.), Xinping Liaozhai zhiyi erbaipian (Guangdong, 1985). Selections.

Zhu Yixuan, Liaozhai zhiyi ziliao huibian (Henan, 1986). Excellent compendium of materials connected with Strange Tales.

Zhu Qikai et al. (eds.), Quanben xinzhu Liaozhai zhiyi (Beijing, 1989). Excellent complete annotated edition.

Qiu Shengwei (ed.), Liaozhai zhiyi duizhao zhuyi xi (Guangxi, 1991). Complete, with running baihua (modern vernacular Chinese) translation, and commentary.

Yu Zaichun (trans.), Zhengbutou Liaozhai zhiyi de putonghua fanyi (Shandong, 1991). Complete baihua version.

Zhu Yixuan, Geng Lianfeng and Sheng Wei, Liaozhai zhiyi cidian (Tianjin, 1991). Excellent handbook, invaluable for the meaning of key terms in the tales.

Yuan Lukun et al. (trans.), Baihua Liaozhai quanben (Liaoning, 1992). Complete baihua version.

Ma Zhenfang (ed.), Liaozhai zhiyi pingshang dacheng (repr. Taibei, 1996). Complete edition, with baihua translations and critical comments. Commentaries by Zhang Renrang, Yang Guangmin, Li Chuanrui, et al.

Sheng Wei (ed.), Liaozhai zhiyi jiaozhu (Taiyuan, 2000). Complete critical and annotated edition.

IN WESTERN LANGUAGES.

Translations of Strange Tales and of Related Materials (arranged alphabetically according to author) Allen, C. F. R. (trans.), 'Tales from the Liao Chai Chih Yi', China Review 2 (18734); 3 (18745); 4 (18756).

Bauer, Wolfgang and Herbert Franke (trans.), The Golden Casket, trans. Christopher Levenson (Harmondsworth, 1965). An anthology of translated tales through the ages.

Buber, Martin (trans.), Chinesische Geister und Liebesgeschichten (Frankfurt, 1927). Partly based on Giles (see below). English trans., Alex Page, Chinese Tales (New Jersey, 1991).

Chang, H. C. (trans.), Tales of the Supernatural (Edinburgh, 1984). Contains a few tales.

Cohn, Don J. (trans.), Vignettes from the Chinese: Lithographs from Shanghai in the Late Nineteenth Century (Hong Kong, 1987). Fine English versions of later descendants of the Strange Tales tradition, complete with lithographic illustrations similar to the ones included in this translation.

Dars, Jacques and Chan Hingho, Comment lire un roman Chinois: anthologie de prefaces et commentaires aux anciennes oeuvres de fiction (Arles, 2001). Contains good annotated French version of the Author's Preface.

Di Giura, Ludovico Nicola (trans.), I Racconti Fantastici di Liao (Milan, 1926). For many years the only complete version in any European language, done by an Italian aristocrat who served as physician to the Italian Legation in Beijing.

Giles, Herbert A. (trans.), Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (London, 1880). A second, revised edition appeared in 1908, which has been often reprinted. Reference is always to this edition. For years this was the standard selection in English. Still worth reading.

Ji Yun, Shadows in a Chinese Landscape: The Notes of a Confucian Scholar, trans. David L. Keenan (Armonk, 1999). Translations of a somewhat later collection of 'strange tales'.

Levy, Andre (trans.), Chroniques de l'etrange (Arles, 1996). First volume in Levy's excellent (and soon to be complete) French version.

Mair, Denis and Victor Mair (trans.), Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio (Beijing, 1989). A selection.

Minford, John (trans.), 'Seven Strange Tales', Meanjin 54:1 (Melbourne, 1995). Earlier drafts.

Quong, Rose (Guang Rusi) (trans.), Chinese Ghost and Love Stories (New York, 1946). A readable selection.

Rosel, Gottfried (trans.), Umgang mit Chrysanthemen (Books 14, Zurich, 1987); Zwei Leben im Traum (Books 58, Zurich, 1989); Besuch bei den Seligen (Books 912, Zurich, 1991); Schmetterlinge Fliegen lassen (Books 1315, Zurich, 1992); Kontakte mit Lebenden (Books 1617, Zurich, 1992). Complete German translation.

Soulie de Morant, George (trans.), Strange Stories from the Lodge of Leisures (London, 1913).

Yuan Mei, Censored by Confucius: Ghosts Stories, trans. Kam Louie and Louise Edwards (Armonk, 1996). Another later collection of 'strange tales'.

Critical Works (Concerning Strange Tales and Related Subjects) Barr, Allan, 'The Textual Transmission of Liaozhai zhiyi', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44:2 (1984).

-, 'A Comparative Study of Early and Late Tales in Liaozhai zhiyi', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45:1 (1985).

-, 'Pu Songling and the Qing Examination System', Late Imperial China 7:1 (June 1986).

- 'Disarming Intruders: Alien Women in Liaozhai zhiyi', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49:2 (1989).

Campany, Robert Ford, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (Albany, 1996).

Chang, Chun-shu and Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, Redefining History: Ghosts, Spirits and Human Society in P'u Sung-ling's World, 16401715 (Ann Arbor, 1998). A detailed and informative study, if sometimes misguided.

? Gutzlaff, Karl, 'Liau Chai I Chi, or Extraordinary Legends from Liau Chai', Chinese Repository 11:4 (1842). Probably the first mention of the work in a Western language.

Horn, Marlon K., The Continuation of Tradition: A Study of Liaozhai zhiyi by Pu Songling (16401715), Ph.D. dissertation (University of Washington, 1979).

Huntington, Rania, Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative (Cambridge, MA, 2003).

Kao, Karl S. Y., Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (Bloomington, 1985).

Minford, John and Tong Man, 'Whose Strange Stories? P'u Sung-ling (16401715), Herbert Giles (18451935) and the Liao-chai chih-i', East Asian History 17/18 (1999).

Spence, Jonathan, The Death of Woman Wang (New York, 1978). Contains several items from Strange Tales, cleverly integrated into Spence's narrative.

Zeitlin, Judith T., Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale (Stanford, 1993).

General Interest A partial list of books of general interest referred to from time to time in the Notes and Glossary.

Arlington, L. C. and William Lewisohn, In Search of Old Peking (Peking, 1935).

Balazs, Etienne, Chinese Civilisation and Bureaucracy, trans. H. M. Wright (New Haven, 1964).

Ball, J. Dyer, Things Chinese, or Notes Connected with China, 5th edn (London, 1925).

Birrell, Anne, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (Baltimore, 1993).

Bredon, Juliet and Igor Mitrophanow, The Moon Year (Shanghai, 1927; repr. Hong Kong, 1982).

Cao Xueqin and Gao E., The Story of the Stone, trans. David Hawkes and John Minford, 5 vols. (Harmondsworth, 197386).

Cass, Victoria, Dangerous Women: Warriors, Grannies and Geishas of the Ming (Lanham, MD, 1999).

Clunas, Craig, Superfluous Things (Urbana, 1991). An excellent introduction to some of the key concepts of late Ming culture.

Couling, Samuel, Encyclopedia Sinica (Shanghai, 1917; repr. Hong Kong). This remains a useful guide to Old China.

De Groot, J. J. M., The Religious System of China, 6 vols. (Leiden, 18921910; repr. several times in Taiwan). The indefatigable Dutch scholar Jan Jakob Maria de Groot (18541921) in this many-volumed work provides a wealth of information on the customs relating to funerals, the dead, spirits and the supernatural in general. He often quotes Pu Songling at length, and his book is a wonderful (if sometimes long-winded) companion to these tales, giving carefully documented descriptions of strange ways of acting and thinking that are taken for granted by Pu Songling.

Dore, Henri, Researches into Chinese Superstitions, trans. M. Kennelly and L. F. McGreal (Shanghai, 19141938; repr. several times in Taiwan). This work by the Jesuit Father Henri Dore, like De Groot's work also huge and many volumed, is a wonderful rambling source of information on traditional Chinese beliefs concerning the supernatural.

Eberhard, Wolfram, A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols (London, 1986).

Fischer-Schreiber, Ingrid, The Shambhala Dictionary of Taoism (Boston, 1996).

Giles, Herbert, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (London, 1898). Still a useful collection of entries, distinguished for the ease with which Giles tells a story.

Giles, Lionel (trans.), A Gallery of Chinese Immortals (London, 1948). More tales of strange individuals, translated by Herbert's son.

Graham, A. C. (trans.), Poems of the Late T'ang (London, 1965).

Hawkes, David (trans.), The Songs of the South: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets (Harmondsworth, 1985). A fine translation of the early shaman-poet to whom Pu Songling pays homage in his Preface.

Hinsch, Bret, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China (Berkeley, 1990).

Ko, Dorothy, Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (Stanford, 1994).

Levy, Howard, Chinese Footbinding: The History of a Curious Erotic Custom (New York, 1966). The classic study by one of the successors to Robert van Gulik.

Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living (London, 1938). A book still to be recommended to those wishing to fill in the more everyday background to Pu Songling's strange world.

Luk, Charles (Lu K'uan Yu) (trans.), Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality (London, 1970). One of several modern studies by Luk, delving deeply into a world frequently described by Pu Songling.

Minford, John and Joseph S. M. Lau (eds.), Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations, I (New York and Hong Kong, 2000).

Miyazaki, Ichisada, China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, trans. Conrad Shiro-kauer (New Haven, 1981). Still the standard study of the obsessive system to which Pu Songling and his contemporaries were slaves.

Needham, Joseph et al., Science and Civilisation in China, 22 vols. (Cambridge, 1954). Whereas de Groot and Dore investigate the supernatural, Needham has surveyed the 'natural', often providing information as startling as anything in Strange Tales.

Nienhauser, William et al. (eds.), Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Bloomington, 1986; vol. 2, Bloomington, 1998).

Reichelt, Karl Ludvig, Truth and Tradition in Chinese Buddhism (Shanghai, 1927; repr. several times in Taiwan).

Schipper, Kristofer, The Taoist Body (Berkeley, 1993).

Sima Qian (c. 145c. 85 BC), Records of the Grand Historian, trans. Burton Watson, 3 vols., Qin Dynasty (221207), vol. I; Han Dynasty (202), vols. II and III, revised edn (Hong Kong and New York, 1993). The standard modern version of the classic historical text to which Pu Songling often alludes.