The Book of Swindles - Selections from a Late Ming Collection

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-231-17862-4
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 1000 g

Reihe: Translations from the Asian Classics

This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young women into adultery. Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder. A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring. A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter. A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their "essence" in an attempt to regrow his penis. These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century work, said to be the earliest Chinese collection of swindle stories.

The Book of Swindles, compiled by an obscure writer from southern China, presents a fascinating tableau of criminal ingenuity. The flourishing economy of the late Ming period created overnight fortunes for merchants—and gave rise to a host of smooth operators, charlatans, forgers, and imposters seeking to siphon off some of the new wealth. The Book of Swindles, which was ostensibly written as a manual for self-protection in this shifting and unstable world, also offers an expert guide to the art of deception. Each story comes with commentary by the author, Zhang Yingyu, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle. This volume, which contains annotated translations of just over half of the eighty-odd stories in Zhang's original collection, provides a wealth of detail on social life during the late Ming and offers words of warning for a world in peril.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zhang, Yingyu

Weitere Mitwirkende

Rea, Christopher G.

Rusk, Bruce

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Maps
Translators’ Introduction
Type 1: Misdirection and Theft
Type 2: The Bag Drop
Type 3: Money Changing
Type 4: Misrepresentation
Type 5: False Relations
Type 6: Brokers
Type 7: Enticement to Gambling
Type 8: Showing Off Wealth
Type 9: Scheming for Wealth
Type 10: Robbery
Type 11: Violence
Type 12: On Boats
Type 13: Poetry
Type 14: Fake Silver
Type 15: Government Underlings
Type 16: Marriage
Type 17: Illicit Passion
Type 18: Women
Type 19: Kidnapping
Type 20: Corruption in Education
Type 21: Monks and Priests
Type 22: Alchemy
Type 23: Sorcery
Type 24: Pandering
Appendix 1: Preface to A New Book for Foiling Swindlers: Strange Tales from the Rivers and Lakes (1617), by Xiong Zhenji
Appendix 2: Story Finding List
Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Zhang Yingyu (fl. 1612–1617) lived during the Wanli period (1573–1620) of the Ming dynasty.

Christopher Rea is associate professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China (2015), and the editor of several books, including Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays by Qian Zhongshu (Columbia, 2011).

Bruce Rusk is associate professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Critics and Commentators: The Book of Poems as Classic and Literature (2012).