Chin P'ing Mei , the Adventurous History of Hsi Men and His Six Wives by Waley (intro), Xiaoxiaosheng - 1952

UK: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1952. Chin P'ing Mei: the adventurous history of Hsi Men and his six wives with an intro by Arthur WALEY is 852pp (with a catalogue at the back & is over 500g to post. Bernard Miall the translator. The anonymous author took the pseudonym Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng, earliest copies circulating in 1596 - The graphically explicit depiction of sexuality garnered the novel a notoriety in China akin to Fanny Hill and Lolita in English literature - The identity of the author has not yet been established, but the coherence of the style and the subtle symmetry of the narrative point to a single author. The British orientalist Arthur Waley, writing before recent research, in his Introduction to the 1942 translation suggested that the strongest candidate as author was Xu Wei, a renowned painter and member of the "realistic" Gong'an school of letters, urging that a comparison could be made of the poems in the Jin Ping Mei to the poetic production of Xu Wei, but left this task to future scholars. . Hardcover. Very Good/No Jacket. 22.5cm.