6 h 57 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens to the ordinary world when the strange refuses to stay outside it?
Anthology of the Strange and Extraordinary gathers brief tales from China, credited to the Ming scholar Wang Shizhen. Odd happenings, uncanny meetings and marvels take their place beyond the boundaries of official history. Each story offers a small glimpse of a world where the familiar and the unsettling lie close together, inviting you to pause over what does not quite fit.
The collection belongs to zhiguai, the Chinese tradition of recording anomalies. Its accounts of strange encounters and extraordinary events offer more than a passing shiver: they open a way into Chinese literary culture. Read a tale at a time, and consider how learned writers make room for wonders that ordinary accounts leave out.
What you’ll discover
- Odd happenings and marvels Explore tales that give the unusual a place outside the boundaries of official history.
- The uncanny close at hand Enter a world where the line between ordinary life and strange encounters feels thin.
- A long literary tradition Discover zhiguai, a Chinese practice of setting down accounts of anomalies and wonders.
- A scholar's literary world Approach the marvelous through a collection credited to Ming poet and critic Wang Shizhen.
- Brief tales worth lingering over Take each complete story on its own, and leave room for it to settle.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy ghost stories, fairy romances, tales of clever courtesans and swordswomen, and old poems traded between lovers will find a wide shelf of moods in one place.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Goddesses visit lonely scholars at night
- A small kindness is repaid by a dragon
- Immortals test men and reward the faithful
- Secrets bring wealth and take it away
- Palace beauties and the fall of rulers
- Tang love, loss and imperial power
- Courtesans who outshine the men around them
- Ghosts and parted souls keep their vows
- Swordswomen, fox wives and wild spirits
Who’s who
- Guo HanA well-bred scholar of Taiyuan who sleeps in his courtyard on summer nights and receives the Weaver Goddess.
- Liu YiA scholar who fails the exams and agrees to carry a dragon princess's letter to her father beneath Lake Dongting.
- Pei HangA student who wants to marry Yunying and agrees to find a jade pestle and mortar for her grandmother.
- Yang GuifeiThe favorite of Emperor Xuanzong, whose beauty, music and quarrels fill the Tang volumes.
- Li WaA Chang'an courtesan who falls in love with a young scholar from Changzhou and shapes his life.
- HongxianA clever maid in Lord Xue's house who offers to ease her master's fear of a rival governor.
- QiannuA girl promised to her cousin Wang Zhou who cannot bear to be married to someone else.
- Xue TaoA Tang poet of Chengdu, famed for her verses and her small colored paper.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 6 h 57 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Antologia dello strano e dello straordinario
by Wang Shizhen
The Weaver Goddess steps down to a scholar named Guo Han, and ghosts, foxes and dragons queue up behind her.
Challenging5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A scholar lies in his courtyard on a hot night, and the Weaver Goddess steps down from the sky. That is how Anthology of the Strange and Extraordinary begins.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Goddesses visit lonely scholars at night
Many tales open with a man alone and a woman from another world who arrives uninvited. Guo Han of Taiyuan lies in his courtyard on a hot summer night when the Weaver Goddess descends with two maids. Readers meet this pattern again and again in the first volume.
She stays with Guo Han night after night, tells him that the stars are palaces, and explains that a heavenly robe has no seams. Other tales change the shape of the visitor. A white dog named Swift Flight guards the scholar Zhang Zunyan through a stormy night. A young man named Xu finds a colored pouch in a tree, and a fairy bride comes for him. The poet Shen Jing offers plain water with a prayer at a temple and soon two sisters of a mountain goddess lead him through the sky.
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What is Anthology of the Strange and Extraordinary about?
It collects many tales of love and wonder from the Tang, Song and Ming periods, with goddesses, ghosts, foxes and dragon princesses, plus portraits of palace beauties, courtesans and swordswomen, and many poems traded by lovers.
Who wrote Anthology of the Strange and Extraordinary?
The collection is credited to Wang Shizhen. It gathers earlier tales from many hands, and its preface is signed by the playwright Tang Xianzu.
What does the Chinese title Yan Yi Bian mean?
Yan Yi Bian can be read as a compilation of the alluring and the strange. The title points to its two main interests, beautiful women and unusual events that cross the line between the human and the spirit world.
More by Wang Shizhen
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