Selections from the Liao Chai, the famous eighteenth-century collection of "marvel tales compiled by P’u Sung-Ling.
Author:
Translator: Rose Quong
Publisher: Dennis Dobson, London
Year: 1947, first UK edition
329 pp.
no ISBN
introduction by Martin Buber, from his 1911 German translation
Regarding the numerous Chinese woodcuts:
"Grateful acknowledgement is made to Columbia University Library, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Print Room of the Public Library, New York, for their help in assembling the illustrative material."
Condition: A sound ex-library copy in a green cloth library binding, deaccessioned from the Hilles Library of Radcliffe College. Binding strong and intact with no loose pages though the text block is slightly jogged. Pages are clean and illustrations remain crisp and attractive. Usual institutional markings from Hilles Library. No dust jacket. Title page bears bright red title.
P’u Sung-Ling (also Pu Songling; 1640-1715) compiled the tales known as Liao Chai ( or Liaozhai Zhiyi, usually rendered in English as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio) over the course of his life. Its hundreds of stories of ghosts, fox spirits, scholars, lovers, demons, transformations, and uncanny encounters became a landmark of Chinese supernatural literature. Rose Quong (1879-1972) was a Chinese-Australian actress, lecturer, writer, and translator who worked in Britain and the United States.
