Search

Slapping the Table in Amazement is the unabridged English translation of the famous story collection Pai’an jingqi by Ling Mengchu (1580–1644), originally published in 1628. The forty lively stories gathered here present a broad picture of traditional Chinese society and include characters from all social levels. We learn of their joys and sorrows, their views about life and death, and their visions of the underworld and the supernatural. Ling was a connoisseur of popular literature and a seminal figure in the development of Chinese literature in the vernacular, which paved the way for the late-imperial Chinese novel. Slapping the Table in Amazement includes translations of verse and prologue stories as well as marginal and interlinear comments.

A collection of five erotic stories from Ming dynasty China, in English for the first time.

"...a colorful tapestry of adventure and misadventure, erotic romance, crafty intrigue, supernatural fantasy, comedies of errors, and crimes and punishment in China of the seventeenth century and earlier- it will delight Sinologists and general readers alike and take the armchair traveler on an astounding trip to a land far away in both time and space. Chun-Jo Liu, Professor Emerita, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis "Meet the ambitious entrepreneur, the scholar-official, upright or unscrupulous, the faithful servant, the scam-artist, the hedonist lay or religious: they and the other characters all played their part in an evolving late-imperial culture so vividly depicted by these writers of the fateful seventeenth century. E-tu Zen Sun, Professor Emerita of Chinese History, Pennsylvania State University.