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China Yesterday: The Chinese Fairy Book

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The 'China Yesterday' series include a few Sinological and biographical works on the topics of Chinese history, literature, society, etc. All these works were written by foreigners and shed light on China in unique perspectives. The seventy-three stories presented in The Chinese Fairy Book after original sources, embracing 'Nursery Fairy Tales,' 'Legends of the Gods,' 'Tales of Saints and Magicians,' 'Nature and Animal Tales,' 'Ghost Stories,' 'Historic Fairy Tales,' and 'Literary Fairy Tales,' represent a varied collection of oriental fairy tales.

Editor's Recommendation

The Chinese Fairy Book comprehensively represents the features of Chinese fairy tales. 'There is no child who will not enjoy their novel color, their fantastic beauty, their infinite variety of subject.'

About Author

Richard Wilhelm (10 May 1873 – 2 March 1930) was a German sinologist, theologian, and missionary. He lived in China for 25 years, became fluent in spoken and written Chinese, and grew to love and admire the Chinese people. He is best remembered for his translations of philosophical works from Chinese into German that in turn have been translated into other major languages of the world, including English. His translation of the I Ching is still regarded as one of the finest.

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Sample pages of China Yesterday: The Chinese Fairy Book (ISBN:9787508539287)
Sample pages of China Yesterday: The Chinese Fairy Book (ISBN:9787508539287)
Sample pages of China Yesterday: The Chinese Fairy Book (ISBN:9787508539287)

Buddha answered with a smile: “Let us make a wager. If you can so much as leave my hand with one of your somersaults, then I will beg the Lord of the Heavens to make way for you. But if you are not able to leave my hand, then you must yield yourself to my fetters.”
Sun Wu Kung suppressed his laughter, for he thought: “This Buddha is a crazy fellow! His hand is not a foot long; how could I help but leap out of it?” So he opened his mouth wide and said: “Agreed!”
Buddha then stretched out his right hand. It resembled a small lotus-leaf. Sun Wu Kung leaped up into it with one bound. Then he said: “Go!” And with that he turned one somersault after another, so that he flew along like a whirlwind. And while he was flying along he saw five tall, reddish columns towering to the skies. Then he thought: “That is the end of the world! Now I will turn back and become Lord of the Heavens. But first I will write down my name to prove that I was there.” He pulled out a hair, turned it into a brush, and wrote with great letters on the middle column: “The Great Saint Who Is Heaven’s Equal.” Then he turned his somersaults again until he had reached the place whence he had come. He leaped down from the Buddha’s hand laughing and cried: “Now hurry, and see to it that the Lord of the Heavens clears his heavenly castle for me! I have been at the end of the world and have left a sign there!”
Buddha scolded: “Infamous ape! How dare you claim that you have left my hand? Take a look and see whether or not ‘The Great Saint Who Is Heaven’s Equal,’ is written on my middle finger!”



Preface

The fairy tales and legends of olden China have in common with the “Thousand and One Nights” an oriental glow and glitter of precious stones and gold and multicolored silks, an oriental wealth of fantastic and supernatural action. And yet they strike an exotic note distinct in itself. The seventy-three stories here presented after original sources, embracing “Nursery Fairy Tales,” “Legends of the Gods,” “Tales of Saints and Magicians,” “Nature and Animal Tales,” “Ghost Stories,” “Historic Fairy Tales,” and “Literary Fairy Tales,” probably represent the most comprehensive and varied collection of oriental fairy tales ever made available for American readers. There is no child who will not enjoy their novel color, their fantastic beauty, their infinite variety of subject. Yet, like the “Arabian Nights,” they will amply repay the attention of the older reader as well. Some are exquisitely poetic, such as “The Flower-Elves,” “The Lady of the Moon” or “The Herd Boy and the Weaving Maiden”; others like “How Three Heroes Came By Their Deaths Because of Two Peaches,” carry us back dramatically and powerfully to the Chinese age of Chivalry. The summits of fantasy are scaled in the quasi-religious dramas of “The Ape Sun Wu Kung” and “Notscha,” or the weird sorceries unfolded in “The Kindly Magician.” Delightful ghost stories, with happy endings, such as “A Night on the Battlefield” and “The Ghost Who Was Foiled,” are paralleled with such idyllic love-tales as that of “Rose of Evening,” or such Lilliputian fancies as “The King of the Ants” and “The Little Hunting Dog.” It is quite safe to say that these Chinese fairy tales will give equal pleasure to the old as well as the young. They have been retold simply, with no changes in style or expression beyond such details of presentation which differences between oriental and occidental viewpoints at times compel. It is the writer’s hope that others may take as much pleasure in reading them as he did in their translation.
Frederick H. Martens.

China Yesterday: The Chinese Fairy Book
$23.78