Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations (C & T Asian Literature Series)

EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF 2500 TEARS OF CONFUCIAN BASED THOUGHTS IN TALES OF OLD. THE MAIN PROBLEM IS THE STYLE CHANGES DUE TO THE WIDE RANGE OF TRANSLATORS, THE BOOK DOES HOWEVER GET TO THE HEART OF MANY CENTURIES OF CHINESE CULTUR.E

Handsome and chunky trade paperback from Cheng & Tsui out of Boston. 603 pp; 2.5 pounds. With a Chronology, Bibliographic Notes, Index to Footnotes, and Chronological Order of the Selections.Spanning the former Han Dynasty to the early Republican Years, these 61 selected stories represent the five major forms of Chinese fiction: pi-chi, ch'uan-ch'i, pien-wen, hua-pen, and kung-an.The book is ordered thematically. Each chapter is a different story type such as The Selfless Friend, The Ingrate, The Ghost Wife, The Reunited Couple, The Trickster, and The Judge. Each of 18 different story types contains between and 3 to 6 different stories."...the most comprehensive collection of Chinese stories translated into English" - Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies"This thoughtfully concieved and meticulously executed anthology of pre-Modern Chinese stories from both the literary language and the vernacular traditions is the most valuable work of its kind available in any Western language...." - Ming Studies"This sizeable volume of 61 stories is a major contribution.... The editors have suceeded at the formidable task of making one book from the manuscripts of over 30 translators." They are to be praised for "the accuracy of the translations, the readibility of the English, and the careful and sensible selection of the Chinese source[s]...." - Journal of Asian Studies

just can't put it down! The only thing I find very annoying is that this book, due to being written some while ago, does not use modern mainland pinyin for the pronunciation of Chinese, and has no Chinese in it at all. So for those of us who know Chinese, then that's a bummer. What I mean by that is that I makes it hard to read. I haven't read any of the original texts in Chinese yet, but I really like the translations. They are very smooth. Can't put it down. Just can't put it down...