This book is based on The New Story of Subjugation of Demons, the forty-chapter expanded version by Feng Menglong (1574-1646), which earliest extant edition of the Tianxu Study was published in 1620, the first year of the Great Prosperous (Taichang) reign of Ming. Unfortunately, the Tianxu edition is missing some pages and with many pages of blurred writings as well. This book is completed by meticulously collating The
Story of Three Suis Quelling Demons in the Northern Song with Notes by Master of the Mohan Study, published in the Propitious Adoration (Chongzhen) reign (1628-1644) of Ming, as a master copy with the relevant modern editions. The explanatory notes in this book consist of personal and geographical names, the events occurred in history compared with the same described as fiction, the origins of episodes and plots, and etc. The English translation is made with such a solid foundation in Chinese origin.
Subjugation of Demons with Modern Detailed Annotation (Ping Yao Zhuan Xin Zhu) is the latest collated and annotated version of Feng’s, and published with the English translation at the same time, so this pair is actually a Chinese-English bilingual book. The Chinese version includes more than 400 footnotes with an introduction, a detailed postscript on collation, a useful bibliography (consists of 117 book titles) and appendices. These newly written and compiled contents are 18.6% of the whole book and equivalent to 23% of Feng’s original version, the good polishing for the main text. The introduction, postscript on collation and well-written footnotes cover a rich inside information of Chinese civilisation: such as the three religions of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism with the relevant legends, the helpful knowledge of the history, culture and geography in ancient China, and how to compare historical events with fictional stories, how to originate folk episodes and how to collate the resources of Chinese traditions. The new contents of this book contain with many insightful comments and new academic points of view. So this book is not only a new version of traditional Chinese novel, but also a useful reference book in the study of oriental civilisation and of Chinese classical literature, especially the works of Feng Menglong.
The English translation of this book includes the introduction and detailed footnotes.
Li Xixing, who collated and annotated this book and translated it into English, is a scholar in Chinese traditions. He was post-graduated from Sichuan University in 1981, personally taught by Professor Xu Zhongshu (1898-1991), who was a great Sinologist well-known in the world. Li Xixing has been studying the historical culture in ancient China since then. He has published 15 books and more than 50 academic assays. He immigrated to New Zealand in 1996 and gained another master’s degree of Arts from Auckland University in 2000. This book is his first English translation of traditional Chinese literature.
In this translation, he has been at pains to capture the immediacy and wit of the original Chinese text, especially the names, poems, couplets and proverbs. He corrected his translated drafts several times and some sentences in the drafts were worked out after repeated deliberation. He has created many well-done examples in translation from Chinese traditions into English. The English translation is written smoothly with grace for English-spoken readers easily to read, making the book more vivid as a book of English literature. Therefore, this book will find favor in the eyes of the readers who love Chinese culture in English-speaking countries and overseas Chinese readers. It will be also a good Chinese-English textbook for the teachers and students in the bilingual programs of Chinese-English both in China and abroad.
| Subjugation of Demons: with Modern Detailed Annotations |
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| $79.08 |
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