Chin P'Ing Mei

Arthur Waley (Introduction)

Published by Bodley Head, London, 1942

About this Item

Reprint, Bodley Head 1942. Thick Royal 8vo. 852pp. Internally very good clean tight sound square, no bookplate, inscriptions or ownership marks of any kind. Bound in green lettered and illustrated beige wide weave linen cloth, gently bumped to lower corner, housed and protected in original green dustwrapper chipped to edges and with short tear to lower corner. Translated as The Golden Lotus, this is a Chinese novel of manners from the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century, and 100 chapters long. 'The explicit depiction of sexuality garnered the novel a notoriety akin to Lady Chatterley's Lover and Lolita in the West, but critics such as the translator David Tod Roy see a firm moral structure which exacts retribution for the sexual libertinism of the central characters.' Authorship is unknown, but British orientalist Arthur Waley, who wrote the Introduction here, suggested that the strongest candidate as author was Xu Wei, a renowned painter and member of the "realistic" Gong'an school of letters. This Edition, with Chinese characters in green to upper, is increasingly uncommon.

Seller Inventory # 100236322

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Chin P'Ing Mei
• Publisher: Bodley Head, London
• Publication Date: 1942
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature