Pu Songling (1640-1715), courtesy name Liuxian and Liuquan, was born in Pujiazhuang, Hongshan Town, Zichuan District, Zibo City, Shandong Province. He was born into a declining landlord family and a scholarly family. The fame is not obvious.
My father Pu Pan gave up studying and doing business, but he read extensively in classics and history and became very knowledgeable.
When Pu Songling was 19 years old, he was admitted as a scholar with the first place in the county, prefecture and road examinations. He was quite famous, but he failed in the examination many times.
When he was 20 years old, he formed the "Yingzhong Poetry Society" with his classmates Wang Luchan, Li Ximei, Zhang Duqing and others. The latter's family was poor, so he was invited to study at Li Ximei's house.
When he was 31 to 32 years old, at the invitation of Sun Hui, the newly appointed magistrate of Baoying County and his friend Sun Hui, who was a Jinshi in Tongyi, he went to Baoying County, Yangzhou Prefecture, Jiangsu Province as a guest. This was the only time in his life that he traveled south from his hometown, which was of great significance to his creation. He has deep experience of the natural landscape, customs and sentiments of the South, the corruption of officialdom, and the suffering of the people. He also made friends with some lower-class southern singers.
After returning to the north, he made a living by setting up a library in the Jin gentry's house. The owner's house had a rich collection of books, which enabled him to read extensively.
At the age of 71, he withdrew his account and returned home, where he lived a life of drinking, writing poetry, and entertaining himself in his spare time. He was keen on the imperial examinations all his life, but failed. At the age of 71, he only made up one year old Gongsheng student, so he had a deep experience of the unreasonableness of the imperial examination system. In addition, he has been fond of folk literature since childhood, and has extensively collected anecdotes about ghosts and ghosts, absorbing creative nutrients, integrating them into his own life experience, and creating an outstanding collection of classical Chinese short stories "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio". The fantasy story of the flower demon and fox charm reflects real life and entrusts the author's ideals.
In addition to "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", there are also 4 volumes of anthology, 6 volumes of poetry; miscellaneous works such as "Quotations of Shengshen" and "Lu of Huaixing"; 3 kinds of operas and 14 popular slang songs kind. It was collected and compiled into "Pu Songling Collection".
"Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" is Pu Songling's masterpiece. It was basically completed when he was about 40 years old, and has been continuously added and revised since then.
"Liaozhai" is the name of his bookstore, "Zhi" means description, and "idiosyncrasy" refers to strange stories, mostly talking about foxes, fairies, ghosts and monsters, which reflects the social outlook of China in the 17th century. .
Wang Shizhen, Pu Songling's friend from the same hometown, wrote a poem for "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio": "I'll just listen to my nonsense, and the rain will be like silk in the melon stand in the bean shed. I should hate talking about human speech, but love to listen to autumn graves." Ghost Sings Poems (Time). "Shi Zhen loved "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" very much, spoke highly of it, and commented on it. He even wanted to buy the manuscript of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" for 500 taels of gold, but was unable to obtain it.
"Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" was completed in the 19th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1680). During Pu Songling's lifetime, it was mostly circulated in manuscripts. In the 31st year of Emperor Qianlong's reign (1766), it was first published by Zhao Qigao in Zhejiang Province. Yanzhou engraving.
There are many versions of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", the main existing ones are:
The half-manuscript version (discovered in the early days of liberation and photocopied and published) is the author's revised version. You can see from it Unfortunately, only 203 of the original works remain (excluding the re-release of "Pig Po Dragon"), which is about half of the original manuscript. The manuscript contains Wang Shizhen's comments written by the author.
In the 16th year of Qianlong's reign (1752), Zhang Xijie (also known as Liantang) of Licheng made a copy based on the Chunting manuscript of Zhu's Palace in Jinan, which was the Zhuxuezhai manuscript of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio". This edition has 12 volumes, with a catalog of 488 chapters, but there are 14 chapters with a catalog but no text, and there are actually 474 chapters. This volume is also accompanied by Wang Shizhen's comments.
At the same time as the Zhuxuezhai manuscript, there was another twenty-four-volume manuscript called Liaozhai Zhiyi (discovered in 1963 and photocopied and published). The original copy should be another manuscript of the author, which was proofread and reviewed with reference to other manuscripts. This volume contains 474 articles ("Wang Gui'an" and "Ji Sheng Fu" are combined into one article). These are the two most complete early manuscripts seen so far, and are of great value to the study of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio".
The earliest existing engraved version of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" is the Qingke Pavilion version engraved by Zhao Qigao in the 31st year of Qianlong's reign (1766). Its "preface" and "examples" describe the source of the manuscript and the work done by the engraver. The book has 16 volumes and 431 articles. Although the chapter is not complete, the important chapters are included. It is also desirable to update the text. After the Qing Keting version was published, the commonly used version was reprinted accordingly. This edition also has several editions with different contents. One is the edition with incomplete text, which has more than 10 articles and 40 fewer entries than the general Zhao edition; the other edition contains Bao Qianbo's "Engraved Book Chronicles" and A book with a book plate of "Hangyou Juqiao Chenshi"; there is also a book without "Chronicles" and a book plate. This volume is also accompanied by Wang Shizhen's comments and relevant appendices after some chapters. The following year, the 32nd year of Qianlong (1767), another engraving of Wang Jin's model was published. This is an anthology that "simplifies complex volumes and divides them into categories". It has 18 volumes, divided into 26 categories, and contains more than 270 articles. In addition, there is also a Tongwen Bureau drawing book, which is characterized by adding some relevant appendices in addition to the appendices of the Zhao version. As for other editions, such as the Fujian Li Shixian edition in the 32nd year of Qianlong's reign, the Shaozhou Jingshe Bookstore edition in the 7th year of Guangxu's reign (1881), and Xiaoyi Shanqiao's selected edition, their texts are similar.
The annotated editions of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" are commonly published by Lu Zhanen and He Yin. Lu's notes were originally single-engraved, but there was an engraving in 1825, the fifth year of Daoguang reign. In the 23rd year of Daoguang reign (1843), the Wuyunlou engraving in Guangdong began to combine Lu's annotations with the original text of "Zhiyi". Later, there were Guangbai Songzhai and Tongwenju drawing editions.
He notes that there is an engraving of the Changrong Hall of Flowers and Trees in the 19th year of Daoguang's reign (1839), and a joint edition of the commentary of Shaozhou Jingshe Bookstore in the 7th year of Guangxu's reign (1881). The two annotations indicate allusions and explain the meaning of words, which greatly facilitates readers to read "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio". However, Lu's annotations are more detailed and rigorous, with fewer errors; while He's annotations are too messy and have many errors.
The earliest comment on "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" was Wang Shizhen's comment. Although Wang's comments are quite brief, they are sometimes precise. Later it was published into a book, with comments from Feng Zhenluan, He Shouqi, and Dan Minglun. Comments from various schools are of great reference value, either to clarify the author's intention, to comment on the method of writing, or to examine the similarities and differences of rumors. But its pedantic attachment is unavoidable.
There are many collected editions of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio". In 1962, the Shanghai Editorial Office of Zhonghua Book Company published the edited and edited edition of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" compiled by Zhang Youhe, which was compiled into 12 volumes and contained 491 chapters (including the "you" chapter and appendix, both belong to The main text (not included in this chapter), together with 9 appendices, adds nearly 70 chapters to the popular version, and includes Hongfu, making it a relatively complete book at present.
Qing Dynasty engraving of "Detailed Notes on Strange Pictures and Ode to Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio"