Pu Songling (P'u Sung-ling) 1640-1715

Pu was born in Shandong. Though well-trained by his father in the classics, he never qualified for public office except for a brief appointment as an aide to a county magistrate in Jiangsu, after which he returned to his home town to work as a private tutor. His most famous work is Liaozhai zhiyi ²áÂN»x²§ (Liaozhai¡¦s records of the strange), a collection of stories about ghosts and spirits which he began to work on at the age of twenty and completed late in life. He was also a productive author of ballads (liqu «Z¦±). Many of the songs in his Liaozhai liqu ²áÂN«Z¦± (Ballads of Liaozhai) are adaptations of stories in Liaozhai zhiyi.

Works available in English:

  • Chinese Ghost and Love Stories (Rose Quong). New York: Pantheon, 1946.
  • Chinese Tales: Zhuangzi, Sayings and Parables and Chinese Ghost and Love
       Stories     (Alex Page). Atlantic Highland, N.J.: Humanities Press International,
       1991.
  • Selected Tales of Liaozhai (Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang). Beijing: Chinese
       Literature, 1981.
  • Selected Translations from Pu Songling's Strange Stories of Liaozhai (Mo
       Ruoqiang, Mo Lunzhong and Mo Lunjun). Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching
       and Research Press, 1988.
  • Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Herbert A. Giles). London: Thos. de la
       Rue, 1880; New York: Paragon Book Gallery, 1908; Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh,
       1908; London: T.W. Laurie, 1916; New York: Dover, 1969; Singapore: Graham
       Brash, 1987.
  • Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Xie Wanruo, Kenneth Lee and Chang
       Chingwen). Taipei: Hilit Pub. Co.; Beijing: Prospect Pub. House, 1990.
  • Strange Stories from the Lodge of Leisure (George Soulie). London:
       Constable, 1913.
  • Strange Tales from Make-do Studio (Denis C. & Victor H. Mair). Beijing:
       Foreign Languages Press, 1989.
  • Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio (Zhang Qingnian, Zhang Ciyun and
       Yang Yi). Beijing: People's China Publishing, 1997.
  • Strange Tales of Liaozhai (Lu Yunzhong, Chen Tifang, Yang Liyi, and Yang
       Zhihong). Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1982.
  • The Bonds of Matrimony (Eve Alison Nyren). New York: Edwin Mellen Press,
       1995.

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