About the author

Hong Pian is a noteworthy figure in the history of editing and publishing popular literature in premodern China, though available public information about his life is limited, and his birth and death dates, native place, and official career cannot be reliably established. Readers today know him mainly through the collections of vernacular storybook texts issued under the name Qingping Shantang (the Qingping Mountain Hall). Three related works are held in this catalog, including the Qingping Shantang huaben and an unannotated edition of the same. These texts largely preserve storybook tales that circulated from the Song and Yuan periods onward, dealing with urban life, marriage and family, crime cases, and tales of the supernatural. Their plain, lively language retains much colloquial speech and storytellers' formulas, making them important sources for the study of early vernacular fiction. Hong Pian's work was chiefly that of collecting, arranging, and publishing, bringing scattered storytelling texts together so that they could be transmitted; his contribution to the preservation of classical literature, especially vernacular storybooks, should not be overlooked.

Written (3)

Publishers

The Commercial Press赤尔斯