While in Chongqing, Gao Luopei read an early Qing dynasty public case novel "Wu Zetian's Four Odd Cases". Greatly impressed, Gao Luopei did an in-depth study and comparison of Western detective novels and Chinese public case legends, and realized that the criminal investigation skills of ancient Chinese judges described in the book were both the use of logical reasoning methods and the detection of mysterious cases. In terms of his ability to solve crimes and his knowledge of criminal psychology, he is even better than modern Western detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and Sheriff Gray. He also discovered that Chinese public case novels had been popular in the East for hundreds of years before the advent of Western detective novels, and short stories with detective themes were widely circulated in China more than 1,000 years ago, and the images of heroic figures in them also appeared early. Appeared on the stage in ancient China for centuries, or were described vividly by storytellers of the time.
He was also surprised to find that Chinese readers like to read Western detective novels. The level of these novels in the West is very low, and the level is even lower after being translated into Chinese at that time. China's long-standing public case legends have been repeatedly criticized in the West. The image of ancient Chinese judges is often distorted and damaged in the West due to rumors and belittling, and Gao Luopei feels deeply resentful about this.
"The Four Strange Cases of Wu Zetian" is an anonymous novel written in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It was probably written around 1800, but the earliest known version is marked with a very recent date. , this book shows Di Renjie's extraordinary career in a narrative that is full of fantasy and completely contrary to historical facts. The unknown author tried to portray a perfect official who, in addition to caring about the sufferings of the people and being loyal to the court, was also good at adapting to the needs of the environment. Gao Luopei asserted that the second half of the book was a forgery, so when he translated the novel under the title "The Case of Di Gong in the Tang Dynasty", he limited it to the first thirty chapters.
In the late 1940s, Gao Luopei first translated "The Four Mysterious Cases of Wu Zetian" into English, and then created "The Case of the Bronze Bell" in English with Di Renjie as the protagonist. He originally planned to publish the Chinese version of "The Case of the Bronze Bell" in China, but because Chinese publishers had not yet realized the huge value of the work and were not active, Gao Luopei had to publish the English version first.
After the English version of "The Bronze Bell Case" was published, it became a great success and was out of control. After repeated urging from the publisher, Gao Luopei worked hard in the 1950s and 1960s and successively created "The Labyrinth Case", "The Golden Case", "The Iron Nail Case", "Four Painted Screens", "The Case in the Lake", etc. More than a dozen short stories and short stories. These works eventually constituted Gao Luopei's "Collection of Dee Renjie Series" - "Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee", also known as "The Case of Judge Dee in the Tang Dynasty", including 15 medium-length novels and 8 short stories. The whole book is about 1.3 million words. These independent novels are arranged in chronological order, not according to the date of writing, but according to the time of the important events in Judge Dee's life.
All of Gollop's works are written in English. He always provided a note explaining relevant traditional Chinese culture in his books, and he also prepared Dutch translations of his works and even translated The Labyrinth Case (Singapore, 1952) into Chinese. The first two Dickinson novels were translated into Japanese before they were published in English (1950; 1951). In the 1960s, when all of Gauloupe's novels were translated into French and German, Judge's novels achieved great success around the world. Among many other foreign language translations, there is also a Spanish translation of "The Golden Case" translated by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, which was published in Madrid in 1965. Judge Dee's novels have been popular in the West for a long time and have been translated into more than ten languages, including Swedish, Finnish, Croatian and other small languages. They have been made into movies several times, and "Judge Dee" has also become a European The legendary figure who is a household name has become the "Chinese Sherlock Holmes" in the minds of Westerners.
Colopy's Judge Judge novels have all been translated into Chinese, and the translators have taken great liberties with the text, often omitting parts that would explain too many details of Chinese life to Western readers.
The most interesting thing is that these novels written by Goluope, which were published independently, were soon reorganized into a novel about Judge Dee