Bandits in Print: "The Water Margin" and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel

Scott W. Gregory

Open Access Published by Cornell University Press 2023

Bandits in Print

"The Water Margin" and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel

Scott W. Gregory
Funded by: Geis Foundation

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501769214

Overview
Contents

About this book

Bandits in Print examines the world of print in early modern China, focusing on the classic novel The Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan). Depending on which edition a reader happened upon, The Water Margin could offer vastly different experiences, a characteristic of the early modern Chinese novel genre and the shifting print culture of the era.

Scott W. Gregory argues that the traditional novel is best understood as a phenomenon of print. He traces the ways in which this particularly influential novel was adapted and altered in the early modern era as it crossed the boundaries of elite and popular, private and commercial, and civil and martial. Moving away from ultimately unanswerable questions about authorship and urtext, Gregory turns instead to the editor-publishers who shaped the novel by crafting their own print editions. By examining the novel in its various incarnations, Bandits in Print shows that print is not only a stabilizing force on literary texts; in particular circumstances and with particular genres, the print medium can be an agent of textual change.

Author / Editor information

Scott W. Gregory is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona.

Reviews

Andrew Schonebaum, University of Maryland:

Bandits in Print is the history of an influential tale, a material object, and a movement: the rise of the long novel and how it reflected and fashioned the reconfiguration of intellectual life. This fascinating book will appeal to anyone interested in the circulation of power, objects, and information in the late Ming.

Yuming He, UC Davis:

This is a page-turner. Framing its discussions within the text's material history, Bandits in Print paints a new picture of the life around the novel in Ming China and gives a fresh perspective on The Water Margin, dubbed one of the four masterpieces of traditional Chinese novels, in clear and engaging prose.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: The Bandits’ Reception Open Access Download PDF	1
1. “Falsifying a Biography Brought Him Power” The “Wuding Editions” of Guo Xun Open Access Download PDF	14
2. “One Freshly Slaughtered Pig, Two Flagons of Jinhua Wine . . . and a Small Book” The Censorate Edition Open Access Download PDF	42
3. After the Fire Li Kaixian, The Precious Sword, and the “Xiong Damu Mode” Open Access Download PDF	63
4. Characters in the Margins The Commercial Editions Open Access Download PDF	79
5. “The Art of Subtle Phrasing Has Been Extinguished” The Jin Shengtan Edition Open Access Download PDF	109
Conclusion: Bandits in Print Open Access Download PDF	135
Selected List of Characters Open Access Download PDF	139
Notes Open Access Download PDF	149
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	165
Index Open Access Download PDF	173

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 192
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 9
- Images: 9
- Other: 9 b&w halftones
Keywords: history of the chinese novel; Ming Dynasty literature; four classic novels of china; Water Margin meaning; vernacular Mandarin novels

eBook

Published: April 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781501769214