Strange Tales from Liaozhai - Vol. 3The weird and whimsical short stories in Strange Tales from Liaozhai show their author, Pu Songling (1640-1715), to be both an explorer of the macabre, like Edgar Allan Poe, and a moralist, like Aesop. In this first complete translation of the collection's 494 stories into English, readers will encounter supernatural creatures, natural disasters, magical aspects of Buddhist and Daoist spirituality, and a wide range of Chinese folklore. Annotations are provided to clarify unfamiliar references or cultural allusions, and introductory essays have been included to explain facets of Pu Songling's work and to provide context for some of the unique qualities of his uncanny tales. This is the third of 6 volumes. |
From inside the book
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... daughter. Following that birth, the mother's stomach continued quaking—and over the next fifteen years, several successive old women had to be dispatched to watch over her—until she finally gave birth again, this time to a son. The ...
... daughter of the proprietress here—her courtesy name's Yatou, and she's fourteen. Time and again, patrons have sent lavish monetary gifts to entice the old woman to let them sleep with the beauty, but the girl has remained unwilling to ...
... daughter's stubborn nature, so she gave her consent, which delighted Yatou. Then as promised, the proprietress sent a maidservant to invite Master Wang to join them. Zhao was afraid that the proprietress would break off the negotiation ...
... daughter's corpse, they saw that it had already turned into a fox. Zi held onto the blade as he charged into the next room, where Yatou's mother was supervising some maidservants as they were preparing soup. He rushed into the room, but ...
... daughters were all foxes. Zi did his best to be a very filial son; however, if something set him off, he'd start cursing and become roaring mad. Yatou told Wang, “Our son has beast tendons inside him, and if they're not removed, he'll ...