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Dear Yulegoat 2021
I'm also Quillori on AO3.
All fandoms are definitely equally wanted - some of my older requests have longer prompts, because I work them over every year, adding a bit here and a bit there, but that doesn't mean I'm not equally keen on the more recent ones.
Requested fandoms (links go directly to the relevant portion of the letter):
In General
Ancient Egyptian Religion
Omar Rayyan Undersea Paintings
The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer
Liáo zhâi zhì yì | Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - Pú Sônglíng
In General
I really would prefer you to write the best story you can, and one you're happy with, rather than trying unsuccessfully to do something that doesn't suit you to fit what I asked for. I'm most interested in what you, dear writer, make of the source material.
Things I like (provided only as indicative of my taste, not in any way as particular requirements of your story):
established relationships
clever and competent characters
slash (incl. femslash)
political intrigue
moral ambiguity
apparently simple conversations with a great deal going on under the surface
angst if done with restraint
clever use of literary allusions
relationships where each party things the other has all the power
fierce loyalty (particularly the tear the world apart for you variety, not the sit here passively putting up with anything variety)
complicated love/hate relationships with lots of backstory
unflappable characters
arrogance if the party concerned has the requisite ability to back it up
relationships between people who see the world at the same angle (even if they aren't always on the same side) ...
IF is always welcome.
Things I’d prefer you avoided: stories heavily focused on pregnancy or children; humiliation; or stories told in the 2nd person (except for IF, or worldbuilding containing fictional non-fiction (eg a fictional set of instructions or a fictional guide book)). I’m more interested in exploring the cultures presented or implied in the canons I’ve requested than in seeing modern standards and ways of thinking imposed on them. I also don't tend to like issuefic, but I'm not sure that's something people generally set out to write - one person's issuefic is another's searingly honest portrayal.
Having said that, specific DNWs are characters explicitly identifying themselves as asexual, aromantic or demisexual, or stories heavily focused on those subjects; trans* or genderqueer headcanons; unrequested genderswaps; setting change AUs unless specifically requested; characters suffering from dementia; characters suffering from permanent and significant memory loss (things like a character forgetting where they put their keys, or being generally a bit forgetful, or permanently not remembering a brief period before a concussion are all fine: definitely irreversible memory loss covering significant relationships, achievements etc, without at least the possibility of eventually recovering them is not.)
(With regard to names in translated works: where I've made some vague attempt to balance consistency, AO3's spellings, and what are the most commonly found spellings, do not feel you need to follow my example! Use whatever romanisation seems good to you.)
Return to Request List
Ancient Egyptian Religion Imhotep, Set
(Just one of the requested characters is fine for this request.) Something dealing with Imhotep's role as god of science and magic, or with his position as a god who was once a man. Or perhaps one of the less well known stories about Set? Or something about his relationship with his worshippers. Or a hymn, or a story made up from fragments, ... whatever you like.
I've written for this fandom myself with anything from a cult hymn to a philosophical text to a modern story tinged with horror, so you can see I like a very wide range of approaches, and you should feel free to write anything you please. I've put some suggestions and prompts below, because that's what I like to get as a writer, but if you already have an idea, you should go ahead and write that. Just because I didn't think to ask for it doesn't mean I don't want to read it!
Imhotep
Pharaohs became gods automatically, but not important gods with lasting and individual characters. Than you have Imhotep, who was not a pharaoh, not supposedly already semi-divine, who nonetheless becomes a god. What is it like to become such a god? How did it happen? Was it something to do with how intensely he lived, or his curiosity, or his determination, or what he achieved? (Obviously, I'm not asking for a socio-political explanation of how he really came to worshipped!) Admittedly, there are later versions in which he was half divine after all, whether on his mother or his father's side, which could also have potential - someone semi-divine but not in the usual and expected role of king.
In a way, Imhotep is a god concerned with right order, and the world working correctly: science and religion are the study of the underpinnings of the world, of the way it functions and can be made to keep functioning correctly. Even medicine is, when you think about it, the study of how things can malfunction, and how to make them right again. (It's also an interesting field for a god who was once human: how does he feel about the suffering and death of people who will not, as he did, have a glorious and powerful afterlife awaiting them?)
Set
Set has a number of aspects I find fascinating. He's god of the desert and the margins, of boundaries and liminal places, and not only physical boundaries but theological ones also: a god associated with chaos and disorder, he is nonetheless the adversary of true chaos (as symbolised by Apophis/Apep); a god closely associated with death, he is also noted for his long life and indestructiblity, putting him at the boundary of the transitory and the everlasting; his very threats to good order are in some sense necessary, for complete unity would be a return to the primordial nothingness, and it is only with the advent of duality and potential conflict that anything could exist at all. (I have always liked that he is not only the god of the desert, but also of the desert oases.) Then, too, for all he is Egyptian, he is god of foreigners (and his worship increased markedly as Egypt became more cosmopolitan, with extensive trade links and successful foreign conquests) - one notes that despite being the god of foreigners (and frequently portrayed as the adversary of good), Set was held to support Egyptians in battle.
Then there is the imagery potentially associated with him: the red of the desert, the savage storms that sink ships at sea or whip up the desert sands, the enduring grey iron ('the bones of Set').
If you want more specific prompts: you could flesh out the fragmentary Astarte Papyrus, or give me anything at all about Set and Astarte (and Anat, if you like), or Set battling Yamm (or Apophis/Apep).
Thuthmose III called himself at times 'Beloved of Set'. What sort of relationship might a mortal man have had with Set? Or, given that Set is in at least some versions portrayed as cunning and intelligent, and is associated both with skilled labour (e.g. ironwork) and with magic, and is also a god set apart from the rest, associated with foreignness and with things out of the normal order: how might he relate to Imhotep?
Return to Request List
Omar Rayyan - Undersea Paintings - Spanish Mackerel
Octopus people in an underwater kingdom... so much potential for worldbuilding (a beautiful and unsettling world almost, but not quite, like ours), or for exploring what it might mean to be half octopus.
Spanish Mackerel
The fishes made wailing cries
At the wild weather
The Dream of King Don Rodrigo Anon, trans W.S Merwin
I'm always a sucker for underwater worlds. And this one is particularly intriguing - I love octopuses, and I’m always fascinated by ongoing research into their intelligence and social structure. So I would be fascinated if you came up with something for Rayyan’s octopus people, whether worldbuilding for their society or just a character study of an individual, which drew on whatever tidbits of octopus research you find particularly fascinating. Or you could play with form a bit, if you wanted to - what is poetry and literature like in this underwater world?
(I asked for just one painting, because I am particularly interested in the octopus people, rather than the scene in Feeding the Fish, but I really don’t mind if you base your story off Spanish Mackerel, Contessa with Squid, or any other of his human/octopus paintings.)
Return to Request List
The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer - Francis Cheviot
More Francis Cheviot! Going to his tailor, playing cards, spying, seducing French agents … anything at all.
I was amazed and saddened when I realised there were people who didn’t like Francis. How could you not? (I mean, as a reader. I can quite see why a number of people in the book might dislike him rather a lot.) But he’s one of my favourite character types: you have the surface appearance, and you have the reality, and the two are quite different, and yet still part of a seamless whole, so that you can’t quite tell what is acting alone, and what is acting based on truth, or acting that deceives only by showing the truth at an angle.1 You have the ruthlessness; the competence; the principle (possibly)2; the sense of humour (you won’t convince me he doesn’t take a good deal of satirical pleasure in many of his interactions in the book); the cultivation of his appearance and behaviour into almost an art form, at least in part for his own private amusement.
What is his life like? Did he get involved in recovering the stolen memorandum only out of self-interest, because he didn’t want to go down with his father, or was he merely not mentioning he has some sort of intelligence job (he does after all say he comes to hear many things he shouldn't)? Or is he involved with something else dangerous? It seems unlikely that even the most efficient and cold-blooded of men would spring quite so quickly to calmly and competently executing a close friend, with no training or experience. (Though if he did, that would be interesting to read too.) How does he normally spend his time - how much on fashion and socialising, on cards, on associating with attractive young men of good family? Who are his friends, and how much of him do they know? How does his world look, seen through his eyes?
(Louis de Castres was nominated too. I didn’t ask for him, because there are so many things I’d like to know just about Francis Cheviot, but if you want to write him, please do. Maybe Cheviot/de Castres back in happier times, before the whole spying for Napoleon bit, or when Francis comes to suspect him (if indeed he didn’t set out to deepen their acquaintance because he already suspected). To what extent does he kill Louis to avoid a scandal (undesirable to both himself personally and to England), and to what extent does he consider it a better death than arrest, disgrace and execution? Or even something from Louis’ point of view, both what he thinks of Francis, and what he thinks of England.)
1 For example, if he is as high stakes a gambler as John claims, it should be obvious he can’t actually be the mess of nerves he presents himself as, but that doesn't occur to John - he just takes the gambling as further evidence of Francis's frippery, worthless nature. Likewise, his tendency to comment on the appropriateness of his own behaviour undercuts any suggestion he really is overcome by any emotion at all, including fear or distress, but again, somehow this just makes him that much easier to dismiss - even his claims of nervous prostration aren’t to be taken seriously. Mostly it doesn't occur to people that if his nerves and frequent collapses aren't believable, you now don't have a reason not to take the rest of him seriously: somehow things which should point up the truth about him, instead further the illusion.
2 Though what exactly it is he believes would be interesting to know - he denies patriotism, but is he telling the truth? And if he is in his way a patriot, is even that partially an act - a pose he considers elegant and appropriate to live up to in his private life, as he publicly lives up to the fine points of fashion? Or see it as just another form of gambling, with lives at stake? Or does he truly act only from self interest, as he says?
Return to Request List
Liáo zhâi zhì yì | Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - Pú Sônglíng - Worldbuilding
I'm interested to see whatever you choose to make of this. Expand on one of Pu Songling's stories or tell one of your own. You could do something with the ever present fox spirits - they're viewed in such a range of ways, from meriting death through to the ambivalence of stories such as Cut Sleeve to admirable heroines (e.g. in Lotus Fragrance). Or you could do something with the relation of dreams to reality, or the extent to which stories are a type of dream. Make your language as densely allusive or as simple as you please, your tone as light or as dramatic as you want. Gen, slash, het; light-hearted, bitingly satirical, restrained or sly or melancholy ... anything that strikes your fancy.
Liaozhai is a collection of short tales of the bizarre, the supernatural and the out-of-place; they're playful, occasionally satirical, boundlessly interested in the world and at times melancholy. It has something for everyone: canon gen, het, slash, poly, gender swap, genderqueer, platonic friendship ... well, alright, it doesn't actually have canon femslash, but there are plenty of relationships you could take in that direction. The original is a masterpiece of classical (as opposed to vernacular) Chinese, both elegant and difficult. English translations generally don't attempt to reproduce the style and are content to be simple and straightforward - which happily licenses you to write in whatever style you prefer.
I’m interested in anything that expands and deepens (or just explores further) the world of these stories.
You can approach many of the tales purely as ghost stories or horror stories, and several modern writers and filmmakers have done so, but that's by no means the only approach you can take. A number of the tales play with the line between dream and reality, sometimes to comment on the nature of fiction itself, other times from a religious perspective from which reality itself is a kind of dream. Some tales are about obsession (by no means always sexual), and thus by extension about what counts as valuable and whether it's worth suffering or dying for.
I will be delighted with anything, but if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed and unsure of where to start, I’ve included below a few suggestions of starting places for different things you might want to write. These are only meant to be helpful starting points! If you already have some other idea, that is what I want to read about.
World as Illusion: There are hints of this in many of the tales, but if you want a sampling of ones where it’s a particular theme, try Flowers of Illusion (aka Taoist Miracles) or The Painted Wall; also, at least by implication, Friendship Beyond the Grave and Twenty Years a Dream.
Fox Spirits: These turn up in many of the tales, sometimes as admirable figures, such as in Grace and Pine (aka Miss Chiao-No) and Lotus Fragrance, sometimes more ambiguous and dangerous, as in The Laughing Girl and Cut-Sleeve, sometimes as evil creatures to be killed with impunity, as in Bird, Fox Enchantment and The Merchant's Son|The Trader's Son (although only in the last is there no trace of sympathy at all for the foxes).
Penguin Classics has a selected translation by John Minford. A much earlier translation by Herbert Giles is available online, but keep in mind it’s from 1880 and is heavily bowdlerised. There's also the recent six volume complete translation by Sondergard. Judith T. Zeitlin translates a number of tales of particular interest in Historian of the Strange (which I very much recommend).
You may, depending where you are, be able to read a couple of pages on Google books about The Painted Wall, a small selection of stories translated by Arthur Zhu in The Painted Skin, Lotus Fragrance and Grace & Pine. Elsewhere there's a discussion of Twenty Years a Dream, and of Grace and Pine among others in an article about scholar's studios. If you belong to a library with access to Literature Online, I think you may be able to get e versions of a number of tales, possibly in the Minford translation.
Return to Request List
All fandoms are definitely equally wanted - some of my older requests have longer prompts, because I work them over every year, adding a bit here and a bit there, but that doesn't mean I'm not equally keen on the more recent ones.
Requested fandoms (links go directly to the relevant portion of the letter):
In General
Ancient Egyptian Religion
Omar Rayyan Undersea Paintings
The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer
Liáo zhâi zhì yì | Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - Pú Sônglíng
In General
I really would prefer you to write the best story you can, and one you're happy with, rather than trying unsuccessfully to do something that doesn't suit you to fit what I asked for. I'm most interested in what you, dear writer, make of the source material.
Things I like (provided only as indicative of my taste, not in any way as particular requirements of your story):
established relationships
clever and competent characters
slash (incl. femslash)
political intrigue
moral ambiguity
apparently simple conversations with a great deal going on under the surface
angst if done with restraint
clever use of literary allusions
relationships where each party things the other has all the power
fierce loyalty (particularly the tear the world apart for you variety, not the sit here passively putting up with anything variety)
complicated love/hate relationships with lots of backstory
unflappable characters
arrogance if the party concerned has the requisite ability to back it up
relationships between people who see the world at the same angle (even if they aren't always on the same side) ...
IF is always welcome.
Things I’d prefer you avoided: stories heavily focused on pregnancy or children; humiliation; or stories told in the 2nd person (except for IF, or worldbuilding containing fictional non-fiction (eg a fictional set of instructions or a fictional guide book)). I’m more interested in exploring the cultures presented or implied in the canons I’ve requested than in seeing modern standards and ways of thinking imposed on them. I also don't tend to like issuefic, but I'm not sure that's something people generally set out to write - one person's issuefic is another's searingly honest portrayal.
Having said that, specific DNWs are characters explicitly identifying themselves as asexual, aromantic or demisexual, or stories heavily focused on those subjects; trans* or genderqueer headcanons; unrequested genderswaps; setting change AUs unless specifically requested; characters suffering from dementia; characters suffering from permanent and significant memory loss (things like a character forgetting where they put their keys, or being generally a bit forgetful, or permanently not remembering a brief period before a concussion are all fine: definitely irreversible memory loss covering significant relationships, achievements etc, without at least the possibility of eventually recovering them is not.)
(With regard to names in translated works: where I've made some vague attempt to balance consistency, AO3's spellings, and what are the most commonly found spellings, do not feel you need to follow my example! Use whatever romanisation seems good to you.)
Return to Request List
Ancient Egyptian Religion Imhotep, Set
(Just one of the requested characters is fine for this request.) Something dealing with Imhotep's role as god of science and magic, or with his position as a god who was once a man. Or perhaps one of the less well known stories about Set? Or something about his relationship with his worshippers. Or a hymn, or a story made up from fragments, ... whatever you like.
I've written for this fandom myself with anything from a cult hymn to a philosophical text to a modern story tinged with horror, so you can see I like a very wide range of approaches, and you should feel free to write anything you please. I've put some suggestions and prompts below, because that's what I like to get as a writer, but if you already have an idea, you should go ahead and write that. Just because I didn't think to ask for it doesn't mean I don't want to read it!
Imhotep
Pharaohs became gods automatically, but not important gods with lasting and individual characters. Than you have Imhotep, who was not a pharaoh, not supposedly already semi-divine, who nonetheless becomes a god. What is it like to become such a god? How did it happen? Was it something to do with how intensely he lived, or his curiosity, or his determination, or what he achieved? (Obviously, I'm not asking for a socio-political explanation of how he really came to worshipped!) Admittedly, there are later versions in which he was half divine after all, whether on his mother or his father's side, which could also have potential - someone semi-divine but not in the usual and expected role of king.
In a way, Imhotep is a god concerned with right order, and the world working correctly: science and religion are the study of the underpinnings of the world, of the way it functions and can be made to keep functioning correctly. Even medicine is, when you think about it, the study of how things can malfunction, and how to make them right again. (It's also an interesting field for a god who was once human: how does he feel about the suffering and death of people who will not, as he did, have a glorious and powerful afterlife awaiting them?)
Set
Set has a number of aspects I find fascinating. He's god of the desert and the margins, of boundaries and liminal places, and not only physical boundaries but theological ones also: a god associated with chaos and disorder, he is nonetheless the adversary of true chaos (as symbolised by Apophis/Apep); a god closely associated with death, he is also noted for his long life and indestructiblity, putting him at the boundary of the transitory and the everlasting; his very threats to good order are in some sense necessary, for complete unity would be a return to the primordial nothingness, and it is only with the advent of duality and potential conflict that anything could exist at all. (I have always liked that he is not only the god of the desert, but also of the desert oases.) Then, too, for all he is Egyptian, he is god of foreigners (and his worship increased markedly as Egypt became more cosmopolitan, with extensive trade links and successful foreign conquests) - one notes that despite being the god of foreigners (and frequently portrayed as the adversary of good), Set was held to support Egyptians in battle.
Then there is the imagery potentially associated with him: the red of the desert, the savage storms that sink ships at sea or whip up the desert sands, the enduring grey iron ('the bones of Set').
If you want more specific prompts: you could flesh out the fragmentary Astarte Papyrus, or give me anything at all about Set and Astarte (and Anat, if you like), or Set battling Yamm (or Apophis/Apep).
Thuthmose III called himself at times 'Beloved of Set'. What sort of relationship might a mortal man have had with Set? Or, given that Set is in at least some versions portrayed as cunning and intelligent, and is associated both with skilled labour (e.g. ironwork) and with magic, and is also a god set apart from the rest, associated with foreignness and with things out of the normal order: how might he relate to Imhotep?
Return to Request List
Omar Rayyan - Undersea Paintings - Spanish Mackerel
Octopus people in an underwater kingdom... so much potential for worldbuilding (a beautiful and unsettling world almost, but not quite, like ours), or for exploring what it might mean to be half octopus.
Spanish Mackerel
The fishes made wailing cries
At the wild weather
The Dream of King Don Rodrigo Anon, trans W.S Merwin
I'm always a sucker for underwater worlds. And this one is particularly intriguing - I love octopuses, and I’m always fascinated by ongoing research into their intelligence and social structure. So I would be fascinated if you came up with something for Rayyan’s octopus people, whether worldbuilding for their society or just a character study of an individual, which drew on whatever tidbits of octopus research you find particularly fascinating. Or you could play with form a bit, if you wanted to - what is poetry and literature like in this underwater world?
(I asked for just one painting, because I am particularly interested in the octopus people, rather than the scene in Feeding the Fish, but I really don’t mind if you base your story off Spanish Mackerel, Contessa with Squid, or any other of his human/octopus paintings.)
Return to Request List
The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer - Francis Cheviot
More Francis Cheviot! Going to his tailor, playing cards, spying, seducing French agents … anything at all.
I was amazed and saddened when I realised there were people who didn’t like Francis. How could you not? (I mean, as a reader. I can quite see why a number of people in the book might dislike him rather a lot.) But he’s one of my favourite character types: you have the surface appearance, and you have the reality, and the two are quite different, and yet still part of a seamless whole, so that you can’t quite tell what is acting alone, and what is acting based on truth, or acting that deceives only by showing the truth at an angle.1 You have the ruthlessness; the competence; the principle (possibly)2; the sense of humour (you won’t convince me he doesn’t take a good deal of satirical pleasure in many of his interactions in the book); the cultivation of his appearance and behaviour into almost an art form, at least in part for his own private amusement.
What is his life like? Did he get involved in recovering the stolen memorandum only out of self-interest, because he didn’t want to go down with his father, or was he merely not mentioning he has some sort of intelligence job (he does after all say he comes to hear many things he shouldn't)? Or is he involved with something else dangerous? It seems unlikely that even the most efficient and cold-blooded of men would spring quite so quickly to calmly and competently executing a close friend, with no training or experience. (Though if he did, that would be interesting to read too.) How does he normally spend his time - how much on fashion and socialising, on cards, on associating with attractive young men of good family? Who are his friends, and how much of him do they know? How does his world look, seen through his eyes?
(Louis de Castres was nominated too. I didn’t ask for him, because there are so many things I’d like to know just about Francis Cheviot, but if you want to write him, please do. Maybe Cheviot/de Castres back in happier times, before the whole spying for Napoleon bit, or when Francis comes to suspect him (if indeed he didn’t set out to deepen their acquaintance because he already suspected). To what extent does he kill Louis to avoid a scandal (undesirable to both himself personally and to England), and to what extent does he consider it a better death than arrest, disgrace and execution? Or even something from Louis’ point of view, both what he thinks of Francis, and what he thinks of England.)
1 For example, if he is as high stakes a gambler as John claims, it should be obvious he can’t actually be the mess of nerves he presents himself as, but that doesn't occur to John - he just takes the gambling as further evidence of Francis's frippery, worthless nature. Likewise, his tendency to comment on the appropriateness of his own behaviour undercuts any suggestion he really is overcome by any emotion at all, including fear or distress, but again, somehow this just makes him that much easier to dismiss - even his claims of nervous prostration aren’t to be taken seriously. Mostly it doesn't occur to people that if his nerves and frequent collapses aren't believable, you now don't have a reason not to take the rest of him seriously: somehow things which should point up the truth about him, instead further the illusion.
2 Though what exactly it is he believes would be interesting to know - he denies patriotism, but is he telling the truth? And if he is in his way a patriot, is even that partially an act - a pose he considers elegant and appropriate to live up to in his private life, as he publicly lives up to the fine points of fashion? Or see it as just another form of gambling, with lives at stake? Or does he truly act only from self interest, as he says?
Return to Request List
Liáo zhâi zhì yì | Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - Pú Sônglíng - Worldbuilding
I'm interested to see whatever you choose to make of this. Expand on one of Pu Songling's stories or tell one of your own. You could do something with the ever present fox spirits - they're viewed in such a range of ways, from meriting death through to the ambivalence of stories such as Cut Sleeve to admirable heroines (e.g. in Lotus Fragrance). Or you could do something with the relation of dreams to reality, or the extent to which stories are a type of dream. Make your language as densely allusive or as simple as you please, your tone as light or as dramatic as you want. Gen, slash, het; light-hearted, bitingly satirical, restrained or sly or melancholy ... anything that strikes your fancy.
Liaozhai is a collection of short tales of the bizarre, the supernatural and the out-of-place; they're playful, occasionally satirical, boundlessly interested in the world and at times melancholy. It has something for everyone: canon gen, het, slash, poly, gender swap, genderqueer, platonic friendship ... well, alright, it doesn't actually have canon femslash, but there are plenty of relationships you could take in that direction. The original is a masterpiece of classical (as opposed to vernacular) Chinese, both elegant and difficult. English translations generally don't attempt to reproduce the style and are content to be simple and straightforward - which happily licenses you to write in whatever style you prefer.
I’m interested in anything that expands and deepens (or just explores further) the world of these stories.
You can approach many of the tales purely as ghost stories or horror stories, and several modern writers and filmmakers have done so, but that's by no means the only approach you can take. A number of the tales play with the line between dream and reality, sometimes to comment on the nature of fiction itself, other times from a religious perspective from which reality itself is a kind of dream. Some tales are about obsession (by no means always sexual), and thus by extension about what counts as valuable and whether it's worth suffering or dying for.
I will be delighted with anything, but if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed and unsure of where to start, I’ve included below a few suggestions of starting places for different things you might want to write. These are only meant to be helpful starting points! If you already have some other idea, that is what I want to read about.
World as Illusion: There are hints of this in many of the tales, but if you want a sampling of ones where it’s a particular theme, try Flowers of Illusion (aka Taoist Miracles) or The Painted Wall; also, at least by implication, Friendship Beyond the Grave and Twenty Years a Dream.
Fox Spirits: These turn up in many of the tales, sometimes as admirable figures, such as in Grace and Pine (aka Miss Chiao-No) and Lotus Fragrance, sometimes more ambiguous and dangerous, as in The Laughing Girl and Cut-Sleeve, sometimes as evil creatures to be killed with impunity, as in Bird, Fox Enchantment and The Merchant's Son|The Trader's Son (although only in the last is there no trace of sympathy at all for the foxes).
Penguin Classics has a selected translation by John Minford. A much earlier translation by Herbert Giles is available online, but keep in mind it’s from 1880 and is heavily bowdlerised. There's also the recent six volume complete translation by Sondergard. Judith T. Zeitlin translates a number of tales of particular interest in Historian of the Strange (which I very much recommend).
You may, depending where you are, be able to read a couple of pages on Google books about The Painted Wall, a small selection of stories translated by Arthur Zhu in The Painted Skin, Lotus Fragrance and Grace & Pine. Elsewhere there's a discussion of Twenty Years a Dream, and of Grace and Pine among others in an article about scholar's studios. If you belong to a library with access to Literature Online, I think you may be able to get e versions of a number of tales, possibly in the Minford translation.
Return to Request List