{"product_id":"stories-to-caution-the-world","title":"Stories to Caution the World","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eStories to Caution the World\u003c\/i\u003e is the first complete translation of Jingshi tongyan, the second of Feng Menglong's three collections of stories which were pivotal in the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. These tales, whose importance in the Chinese literary canon and in world literature is without question, have been compared to Boccaccio's \u003ci\u003eDecameron\u003c\/i\u003e and the stories of \u003ci\u003eA Thousand and One Nights\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeopled with scholars, emperors, ministers, generals, and a gallery of ordinary men and women in their everyday surroundings -- merchants and artisans, prostitutes and courtesans, matchmakers and fortune-tellers, monks and nuns, servants and maids, thieves and imposters -- the stories in this collection provide a vivid panorama of the bustling world of imperial China before the end of the Ming dynasty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeng Menglong collected popular stories from a variety of sources (some dating back centuries) and circulated them via the flourishing seventeenth-century publishing industry. He not only saved them from oblivion but elevated the status of vernacular literature and provided material for authors of the great late-Ming and Qing novels to draw upon. As in their translation of the first collection of Feng's trilogy, \u003ci\u003eStories Old and New\u003c\/i\u003e, Shuhui and Yunqin Yang include all forty stories as well as Feng's interlinear and marginal comments and all of the verse woven throughout the stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor other titles in the collection go to http:\/\/www.washington.edu\/uwpress\/books\/ming.html\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Feng Menglong","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53614352630140,"sku":"9780295985688","price":43.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0251\/4980\/0541\/files\/9780295985688_88fb917c-5249-40df-b26f-73e753d12232.jpg?v=1725527157","url":"https:\/\/combined-academic.myshopify.com\/products\/stories-to-caution-the-world","provider":"Combined Academic Publishers - Mare Nostrum Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}