4 h 57 minAudiobook4 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 if a lake could tell you how a city remembers its heroes, dreams, and disappointments?
In West Lake: A Second Collection, Zhou Qingyuan gathers short stories around Hangzhou’s famous lake. Poets, officials, soldiers, scholars, and ordinary people pass through a landscape thick with memory. Each tale connects a person or place to the water, showing how a city turns its past into legend.
The collection moves through city life, history and wonder, and tales of loyal service. Historical figures share the page with marvels, omens, dreams, and turns of fate. Behind these stories stands Hangzhou’s tradition of remembering courage, including Yue Fei and Yu Qian, whose tombs lie beside the lake. Loyalty, talent, and fortune give the tales their human weight.
What you’ll discover
- A lake full of memory Discover a landscape where people and places carry the stories of Hangzhou’s past.
- History touched by wonder Follow tales that bring historical figures together with dreams, omens, and unexpected turns of fate.
- Loyalty and courage remembered Explore the tradition of honouring loyal service that shapes the lake’s memorial landscape.
- The storyteller’s lively language Enjoy plain, talkative prose rooted in the storytelling tradition of teahouses and markets.
- Room to linger Settle into leisurely tales with asides, verse, and moral comments along the way.
Who will love it
For readers who love Chinese history, traditional storytelling, or Hangzhou and its famous lake. These tales also welcome anyone curious about how legends are made and how places hold memory.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A city told through its lake
- History and wonder share one page
- Heroes, officials and loyal service
- How to read these tales today
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- Large print hardcover
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Lago dell’Ovest: Seconda raccolta
Along Hangzhou's West Lake, history meets marvel in tales of loyalty, talent and fortune.
Challenging2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
West Lake: A Second Collection is a book of stories by Zhou Qingyuan, a writer from Hangzhou in the late Ming dynasty. Its Chinese title is Xihu Erji.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A city told through its lake
Zhou Qingyuan lived in the region his stories describe, and that closeness shapes the whole book. West Lake is not only a backdrop here. It is the thread that joins every tale, and its hills, bridges, temples and tombs give each story a place to stand.
The title says this is a second collection, and it follows the habit of Ming storytellers who published tales in groups. Readers of the time bought such books for entertainment and for instruction. They expected a good story that also taught something about right and wrong.
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What is West Lake: A Second Collection about?
It is a book of Chinese vernacular tales centred on West Lake in Hangzhou. The stories link historical figures, local legends and moral lessons to the lake's places, from causeways and temples to famous tombs.
Who wrote Xihu Erji?
Zhou Qingyuan wrote it. He was a Ming dynasty author from the Hangzhou region, and the book is his best-known work, a collection in the style of storytellers' tales.
What does the Second Collection in the title mean?
Ming storytellers often issued tales in groups, and this book is presented as a second set about West Lake. The title shows it belongs to a series of stories tied to the same place.
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