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Written during the early Qing Dynasty, «Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio» is a collection of nearly 500 mostly supernatural tales by Chinese author Pu Songling. The work, which was published posthumously sometime between 1740 and 1766, is comprised of stories varying in length. While the main characters of this book apparently are ghosts, foxes, immortals and demons, Pu Songling is more focused on the real life of commoners. Four main themes run throughout the book. The first is the author's complaint with the existing feudal system, which he finds to be unjust and skewed towards the elite. Secondly the author is concerned with the corruption that exists in the Imperial examination system. Thirdly the author shows his admiration of pure, faithful love between poor scholars and powerless women. And lastly is the overarching theme of morality for which Pu Songling intended «Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio» to be instructive towards bettering. This work of classical Chinese literature is translated here by Herbert A. Giles.

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Written during the early Qing Dynasty, “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” is a collection of nearly 500 mostly supernatural tales by Chinese author Pu Songling. The work, which was published posthumously sometime between 1740 and 1766, is comprised of stories varying in length. While the main characters of this book apparently are ghosts, foxes, immortals, and demons, Pu Songling is more focused on the real lives of common folk of his time. Four main themes run throughout the book. The first is the author’s complaint with the existing feudal system, which he finds to be unjust and skewed towards the elite. Secondly the author is concerned with the corruption that exists in the Imperial examination system. Thirdly the author shows his admiration of pure, faithful love between poor scholars and powerless women. And lastly is the overarching theme of morality for which Pu Songling intended “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” to be instructive towards bettering. This work of classical Chinese literature is presented here in a translation by Herbert A. Giles.

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Long considered a masterpiece of the eerie and fantastic, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio is a collection of supernatural-themed tales compiled from ancient Chinese folk stories by Songling Pu in the eighteenth century. These tales of ghosts, magic, vampirism, and other things bizarre and fantastic are an excellent Chinese companion to Lafcadio Hearn's well-known collections of Japanese ghost stories Kwaidan and In Ghostly Japan. Already a true classic of Chinese literature and of supernatural tales in general, this new edition of the Herbert A. Giles translation converts the work to Pinyin for the first time and includes a new foreword by Victoria Cass that properly introduces the book to both readers of Chinese literature and of hair-raising tales best read with the lights turned low on a quiet night. Some of the stories found in these pages include: The Tiger of ZhaochengThe Magic SwordMiss Lianziang, the Fox-GirlThe Quarrelsome BrothersThe Princess LilyA Rip Van WinkleThe Resuscitated CorpseTaoist MiraclesA Chinese Solomon

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