A five-volume translation of the classic sixteenth-century Chinese novel on the domestic life of a corrupt merchant.

"The greatest novel of physical love which China has produced." —Pearl S. Buck A saga of ruthless ambition, murder, and lust, The Golden Lotus (Jin Ping Mei) has been called the fifth Great Classical Novel in Chinese literature and one of the Four Masterworks of the Ming novel. Admired in its own time for its literary qualities and biting indictment of the immorality and cruelty of its age, it has also been denigrated as a "dirty" book for its sexual frankness. It centers on Ximen Qing, a wealthy, young, dissolute, and politically connected merchant, and his marriage to a fifth wife, Pan Jinlian, literally "Golden Lotus." In her desire to influence her husband and, through him, control the other wives, concubines, and entire household, she uses sex as her main weapon. The Golden Lotus lays bare the rivalries within this wealthy family while chronicling its rise and fall. It fields a host of vivid characters, each seeking advantage in a corrupt world. The author of The Golden Lotus is Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng, whose name, a pseudonym, means "Scoffing Scholar of Lanling." His great work, written in the late Ming but set in the Song Dynasty, is a virtuoso collection of voices and vices, mixing in poetry and song and sampling different social registers, from popular ballads to the language of bureaucrats, in order to recreate and comment mordantly on the society of the time. This edition features a new introduction by Robert Hegel of Washington University, who situates the novel for contemporary readers and explains its greatness as the first single-authored novel in the Chinese tradition. This translation contains the complete, unexpurgated text as translated by Clement Egerton with the assistance of Shu Qingchun, later known as Lao She, one of the most prominent Chinese writers of the twentieth century. The translation has been pinyinized and corrected.

The fourth volume of a celebrated translation of the classic Chinese novel This is the fourth and penultimate volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P’ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch’ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form—not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. This complete and annotated translation aims to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.

This is the fourth and penultimate volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature. The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P’ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch’ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form—not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. This complete and annotated translation aims to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.

"The greatest novel of physical love which China has produced." —Pearl S. Buck A saga of ruthless ambition, murder, and, famously, Chinese erotica, The Golden Lotus (also known as The Plum in the Golden Vase) has been called the fifth Great Classical Novel in Chinese Literature and one of the Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. Admired in its own time for its literary qualities and biting indictment of the immorality and cruelty of its age, this Chinese classic has also been denigrated for its sexual frankness. It centers on Ximen Qing, a young, dissolute, and politically connected merchant, and his marriage to a fifth wife, Pan Jinlian, literally "Golden Lotus." In her desire to influence her husband and, through him, control the other wives, concubines, and entire household, she uses sex as her primary weapon. The Golden Lotus lays bare the rivalries within this wealthy family while chronicling its rise and fall. TThis great work of classic Chinese literature, from an author whose pseudonym means "Scoffing Scholar of Lanling", is a virtuoso collection of voices and vices, mixing in poetry and song. It samples different social registers from popular ballads to the language of bureaucrats to recreate and comment mordantly on the society of the time. Little-known in the west but utterly iconic amongst the Chinese classics in worldly circles, reading The Golden Lotus promises both an astute reflection on human tendencies and a sumptuous, intoxicating take on Chinese erotica. This new edition: Features a superb new introduction by Robert Hegel of Washington University, who explains its importance as the first single-authored novel in the Chinese tradition Contains the complete, unexpurgated text as translated by Clement Egerton with the assistance of Shu Qingchun (later known as Lao She, one of the most prominent Chinese writers of the twentieth century) Ensures translation has been pinyinized and corrected for this new edition

In Obscene Things Naifei Ding intervenes in conventional readings of Jin Ping Mei, an early scandalous Chinese novel of sexuality and sexual culture. After first appearing around 1590, Jin Ping Mei was circulated among some of China’s best known writers of the time and subsequently was published in three major recensions. A 1695 version by Zhang Zhupo became the most widely read and it is this text in particular on which Ding focuses. Challenging the preconceptions of earlier scholarship, she highlights the fundamental misogyny inherent in Jin Ping Mei and demonstrates how traditional biases—particularly masculine biases—continue to inform the concerns of modern criticism and sexual politics. The story of a seductive bondmaid-concubine, sexual opportunism, domestic intrigue, adultery and death, Jin Ping Mei has often been critiqued based on the coherence of the text itself. Concentrating instead on the processes of reading and on the social meaning of this novel, Ding looks at the various ways the tale has been received since its first dissemination, particularly by critiquing the interpretations offered by seventeenth-century Ming literati and by twentieth-century scholars. Confronting the gender politics of this “pornographic” text, she troubles the boundaries between premodern and modern readings by engaging residual and emergent Chinese gender and hierarchic ideologies.

A five-volume translation of the classic sixteenth-century Chinese novel on the domestic life of a corrupt merchant.