What the Master Would Not Speak Of: Stories

Based on Yuan Mei’s Qing-dynasty work What the Master Would Not Discuss, this book retells its bizarre and fantastical classical Chinese tales of ghosts and spirits in accessible modern language, expanding and polishing them where appropriate. It features short stories about fox spirits and ghosts, karmic retribution, extraordinary people and strange happenings, and the netherworld and illusory dreams. The stories retain the original work’s supernatural flavor while shedding its obscure classical prose, bringing to life in modern speech the strange tales “the sages would not discuss.” There is no deliberate moralizing or forced explanation here, just the strange, the uncanny, and the intriguing. Each concise tale is full of bizarre twists, inviting you into the shadowy spirit world of ancient folk belief. Enjoy them as light reading, or savor the distinctive charm of traditional Chinese supernatural fiction.