谢诏

Xie Zhao is an author of popular historical fiction about whom little is known: his native place, dates of birth and death, and courtesy name cannot be verified, and public information is limited. Judging from the six works held in the collection, his writing centers on the Qing-dynasty novel series Romance of the Eastern Han, which uses the rise and fall of the Eastern Han dynasty as its thread and dramatizes emperors, ministers, loyalists and villains, and military campaigns. Works of this kind belong to the traditional historical romance genre and often continue the storytelling and popular-printing traditions, with plain, fluent language and plots that stress drama and readability for ordinary readers. Xie Zhao's Romance of the Eastern Han offers a popular path for general readers to approach Eastern Han history, and its common classifications, classical literature and otherworldly continent, reflect later repackaging and reuse of traditional romance material.