Taiping Guangji

The Taiping Guangji (simplified Chinese: 太平广记; traditional Chinese: 太平廣記; pinyin: Tàipíng Guǎngjì), sometimes translated as the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, is a collection of stories compiled under the editorship of Li Fang, first published in 978. The book is divided into 500 volumes (卷; Juǎn) and consists of about 3 million Chinese characters. It is a collection of about seven thousand stories that were selected from over three hundred books and novels from the Han dynasty to the early Song dynasty, many of which have long been lost. Some stories are historical or naturalistic anecdotes, each is replete with a historical elements, and qualify as fiction, but the topics are mostly supernatural, about Buddhist and Daoist priests, immortals, ghosts, and various deities. They include a number of Tang dynasty stories, especially chuanqi (tales of wonder), that are famous works of literature in their own right, and also inspired later works. It is considered one of the Four Great Books of Song.

Famous stories

• The Tale of Li Wa by Bai Xingjian
• Huo Xiaoyu's Story by Jiang Fang — this story has been translated by Stephen Owen to English in Anthology of Chinese Literature, Beginnings to 1911 (1996)

References

• Allen, Sarah M. (2014), Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Love in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Charles E. Hammond, "T'ang Legends: History and Hearsay" Tamkang Review 20.4 (summer 1990), pp. 359–82.
• Cheng, Yizhong, "Taiping Guangji" ("Extensive Records of the Taiping Era "). Encyclopedia of China (Chinese Literature Edition), 1st ed., via archive.org.
• Kurz, Johannes. "The Compilation and Publication of the Taiping yulan and the Cefu yuangui", in Florence Bretelle-Establet and Karine Chemla (eds.), Qu'est-ce qu'écrire une encyclopédie en Chine?. Extreme Orient-Extreme Occident Hors série (2007), 39-76.