Mirage

The young son of a Chinese traders association head must take over his family's business and learn to navigate the social norms of Guangzhou society in a novel called Shenlou zhi, which was first published in 1804 and is closely connected to events in Guangzhou and the Huizhou rebellion.

Format: Hardback
Length: 450 pages
Publication date: 08 December 2021
Publisher: The Chinese University Press

The young son of the head of the Chinese traders association, the men licensed to deal with foreign merchants in the port of Guangzhou, is suddenly burdened with responsibility for his powerful family upon his father's sudden death. A latter-day Baoyu, but with far stronger sexual impulses, the son learns both to tame his own libido to some degree and to conduct himself prudently in the Guangzhou society of his time. All of this appears in a comparatively little-known and little-studied novel called Shenlou zhi, which is here translated for the first time.

The novel was actually first published in 1804, several decades before opium became a factor in the China trade. It is not only by far the earliest novel to deal with that trade, but also one of the earliest accounts of it. Furthermore, it has been found to be closely connected to events that occurred in Guangzhou and the outbreak of rebellion in Huizhou. This strikingly original work develops the culture of adolescence that was first described in Honglou meng and also relishes, in its account of the rebellion, the romantic conventions of Shuihu zhuan.

The son of the head of the Chinese traders association, the men licensed to deal with foreign merchants in the port of Guangzhou, is suddenly burdened with responsibility for his powerful family upon his father's sudden death. A latter-day Baoyu, but with far stronger sexual impulses, the son learns both to tame his own libido to some degree and to conduct himself prudently in the Guangzhou society of his time. All of this appears in a comparatively little-known and little-studied novel called Shenlou zhi, which is here translated for the first time.

The novel was actually first published in 1804, several decades before opium became a factor in the China trade. It is not only by far the earliest novel to deal with that trade, but also one of the earliest accounts of it. Furthermore, it has been found to be closely connected to events that occurred in Guangzhou and the outbreak of rebellion in Huizhou. This strikingly original work develops the culture of adolescence that was first described in Honglou meng and also relishes, in its account of the rebellion, the romantic conventions of Shuihu zhuan.

The son of the head of the Chinese traders association, the men licensed to deal with foreign merchants in the port of Guangzhou, is suddenly burdened with responsibility for his powerful family upon his father's sudden death. A latter-day Baoyu, but with far stronger sexual impulses, the son learns both to tame his own libido to some degree and to conduct himself prudence in the Guangzhou society of his time. All of this appears in a comparatively little-known and little-studied novel called Shenlou zhi, which is here translated for the first time.

The novel was actually first published in 1804, several decades before opium became a factor in the China trade. It is not only by far the earliest novel to deal with that trade, but also one of the earliest accounts of it. Furthermore, it has been found to be closely connected to events that occurred in Guangzhou and the outbreak of rebellion in Huizhou. This strikingly original work develops the culture of adolescence that was first described in Honglou meng and also relishes, in its account of the rebellion, the romantic conventions of Shuihu zhuan.

Weight: 1594g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9789629965815