Ssu-ma Ch'ien

William H. Nienhauser

司馬遷

This second volume of the ongoing annotated translation of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shi chi(The Grand Scribe's Records), widely acknowledged as the most important early Chinese history, contains the "basic annals" of five early Han-dynasty emperors. The annals trace the first century of Han rule (206 BC to ca. 100 BC) in a year-by-year account that focuses on imperial activities. In The Grand Scribe's Records, Ssu-ma Ch'ien revitalised the style of the annals he had written for previous rulers. Here are accounts of the peasant who founded the dynasty, Liu Pang, a man noted as much for his licentiousness as he was his ruthless political instinct, and of his cruel wife, Empress Lÿ, who murdered her chief rival for Liu Pang's affections in the most gruesome manner. The annals of two relatively undistinguished emperors follow. The volume concludes with Ssu-ma's depiction of perhaps the greatest ruler of the Han, Emperor Wu, told within the context of his delusive attempts to find a means to achieve immortality. When completed this translation will bring all 130 chapters of the Shih chi into English. Volumes 1 and 7 were published by Indiana University Press in 1994.

The Grand Scribe's Records

"This volume supplements Tang Tales, A Guided Reader (Volume 1; 2010) and presents twelve more Tang tales, going beyond the standard corpus of these narratives to include six stories translated into English for the first time. The rich annotation and translator's notes for these twelve tales provide insights into many aspects of Tang material culture and medieval thought, including Buddhism and Daoism. In addition to meticulously annotated translations, the book offers original texts (with some textual notes), and commentaries in the form of translator's notes, thereby joining the first volume of Tang tales as the only collections that introduce students to Tang tales while also challenging specialists interested in the field."--

A Guided Reader

Tang Dynasty Tales

Qian Sima

Robert Reynolds

Ssu-Ma Ch'Ien

Zhi Chen

"... an essential source for the study of events in early China, a guide to the moral philosophy of the gentlemen of Han, and a splendid work of literature which may be read for the pleasure of its style and the power of its narrative.... This work makes ÂShi ji and its scholarship accessible to any reader of English, and it is a model for any work in this field and style." —Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Oxford Journals "Through such work as this, the scholary and literary community of the West will learn more of the splendour and romance of early China, and may better appreciate the lessons in humanity presented by its great historian." —Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies "... Nienhauser's new translation is scrupulously scholarly... the design of this series is nearly flawless... the translation itself is very precise..." —Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews This project will result in the first complete translation (in nine volumes) of the ÂShih chi (The Grand Scribe's Records), one of the most important narratives in traditional China. Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145-c.86 B.C.), who compiled the work, is known as the Herodotus of China.

The Grand Scribe's Records: The basic annals of pre-Han China

The book provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey of the genre of Tang tales in English, including discussions of the numerous Chinese studies from the last decade. Tang Tales itself contains the first annotated translations of these famous stories, which are deciphered and interpreted specifically for students and scholars interested in the medieval Chinese literature. Following the model of intertextual readings employed by Glen Dudbridge in The Tale of Li Wa (Oxford, 1983), the annotation points to the resonances to the classical texts; the translator's notes following each translation then explain how these references expand the meaning of the text. In addition to six translations of the major tales (chuanqi, "transmitting the strange"), there is also a rendition of a fantastic tale by Liu Zongyuan, suggesting close ties with popular and oral literature. The appended glossary of terms marks the first attempt to create such a reference for readers and scholars of Tang tales that will be of use in reading other tales as well. The meticulous scholarship of this book elevates it above all existing collections of these stories, and the inclusion of the standard introduction to the Tang tales for graduate students and researchers engenders a deeper appreciation.

"A vertitable feast of concise, useful, reliable, and up-to-date information (all prepared by top scholars in the field), Nienhauser's now two-volume title stands alone as THE standard reference work for the study of traditional Chinese literature. Nothing like it has ever been published." -- Choice The second volume to The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature is both a supplement and an update to the original volume. Volume II includes over 60 new entries on famous writers, works, and genres of traditional Chinese literature, followed by an extensive bibliographic update (1985-1997) of editions, translations, and studies (primarily in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, and German) for the 500+ entries of Volume I.

William H. Nienhauser

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