Anthology of Tales from Records of the Taiping Era in the two book hardback set from Library of Chinese Classics. This book is in English and simplified Chinese and is a wonderful addition to any library. There are approximately 1019 pages and this set of 2 volumes was published by Foreign Languages Press in 2008.
Anthology of Tales from Records of the Taiping Era
This set contains 155 of the best-written stories from the Records of the Taiping Era. The Chinese version is the one punctuated and proofread by Wang Shaoying, and published by Zhonghua Book Bureau in 1961, while the English version is from Zhang Guangqian’s translation.
Records of the Taiping Era, compiled during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), is a collection of nearly 7,000 stories, dating from the pre-Qin period (770-221 B.C.) to the early Northern Song Dynasty. The stories, principly myths and legends, record and recount a variety of strange happenings in a succinct style. The subjects and content as well as the literary genre exerted a tremendous influence on the development of classical Chinese novels, and indeed on Chinese literature as a whole.
Many writers of later generations have sourced materials for prose and drama works from the Records of the Taiping Era. Additionally, due to material collected in the Records of the Taiping Era, we have gained knowledge of over 400 books and documents which no longer exist.
Anthology of Tales from Records of the Taiping Era is part of Library of Chinese Classics and there are over 60 books in the series so far. Library of Chinese Classics is a ‘mirror’ format which means that there is a page of Chinese followed by a page of English. The bilingual nature of this series means that it is perfect for Western readers interested in Chinese culture, people learning Chinese and indeed native Chinese readers.