The Plum in the Golden Vase Or, Chin P'ing Mei

This is the fourth and penultimate volume in David Roy's celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature.The Plum in the Golden Vaseor,Chin P'ing Meiis an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form--not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context. Written during the second half of the sixteenth century and first published in 1618, ThePlum in the Golden Vaseis noted for its surprisingly modern technique. With the possible exception ofThe Tale of Genji(ca. 1010) andDon Quixote(1605, 1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens ofBleak House, the Joyce ofUlysses, or the Nabokov ofLolitathan anything in earlier Chinese fiction, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This complete and annotated translation aims to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth.