The Courtesan's Jewel Box by Feng Menglong


The Courtesan's Jewel Box
Title : The Courtesan's Jewel Box
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1589634330
ISBN-10 : 9781589634336
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 556
Publication : First published December 1, 1981

This is a selection of popular Chinese stories from the 10th to 17th centuries. These stories were written in the spoken language that developed as a literary medium after the emergence of an urban commercial economy in the Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279). Originally the manuscripts of ordinary street story-tellers, this genre of fiction –deriving its material from the life and times of the period, with vivid writing and intricate plots, descriptions that are natural and vivacious– has now attained a lofty place as literature. The twenty stories in this book were selected from over two hundred in several collections published at the beginning of the 17th century.

The Courtesan's Jewel Box Reviews

  • Meghan Fidler

    This book is a collection of Song Dynasty oral narratives, which were collected by scholars during the Ming Dynasty. While I doubt that the narratives were 'preserved' in their original form, the stories in this book are nonetheless interesting.
    It would be a bit time consuming to summarize each of the 20 stories in this collection. Overall, the collection is strong study of gender and gendered expectations, including beauty and betrayal. The stories also illustrate just how common torture was during any authorized interrogation (it is noteworthy that some so-called 'modern democracies' have not progressed beyond the interrogation techniques of China in the 10th century, but I digress).
    Within the book I had five favorite narratives: "The Foxes' Revenge" (because I like trickster narratives), "The Hidden Will" (depicting the complexities of inheritance and good will with the inclusion of a Concubine and her son in a family), "The Two Brothers" (about altruistic acts and adoption, and "The Tangerines and the Tortoise Shell" (which I like primarily because it introduces a new kind of dragon I had not yet heard of).
    Finally, and my favorite, was "The Old Gardener." Here the devotion and energy created by an old man's careful attention to his flowers gives him access to a greater spiritual realm, serving both as protection in life and transcendence in death. I rather like this line of thought.

  • Chris

    My favourite stories of the bunch are "The Courtesan's Jewel Box" and "The Oil Peddler and the Plum Flower Girl." I read this while browsing through the collection in my university library (so sometime between 2000 and 2004?)

  • Zeezeebell

    don`t get lust.be inlove.