New Vernacular Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty

"The Record of Night Rain and Autumn Lamps" is a well-known work among notebook novels in the late Qing Dynasty, and it was widely circulated for a time. Lu Xun once compared it with Wang Tao's "The Admonishment of Escape from the Ku", "Songyin Manglu", and "Songbin Suohua", saying that its writing is first-rate in "Liao Zhai". The author Xuanding (18621908), nicknamed Shoumei, was born in Tianchang, Anhui. Live in the clear light. In his later years, he encountered difficulties and made a living by selling calligraphy and painting in Shanghai. He is a painter and poet who is good at painting flowers and birds, and is also good at poetry. "Ye Yu Qiu Deng Lu" all contains old anecdotes, magical fox ghosts, romantic encounters with Yeyou, Fendai fireworks and other stories that have been witnessed with one's own eyes or folklore. However, most of the plots are bizarre and surprising. They are both solemn and humorous, full of fun. The writing style is concise and the diction is rich. It can be said to be superior among notebook novels. Regarding the number of volumes of this book, there are three different records: "Baqianjuanlou Bibliography" records eight volumes; Lu Xun's "A Brief History of Chinese Novels" contains sixteen volumes; "Zhongshu Zonglu" and "Cymology" and the "Chinese Dictionary" published in Taiwan all contain twelve volumes; there are also cases where the twelve volumes are divided into a preliminary collection, a sequel, and three volumes, with each collection having four volumes.