The Plum in the Golden Vase, Vol.1 - Vol. 5 (Chin P'ing Mei)

Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng/David Tod Roy (translated)
ISBN: 978-0-691-01641-6/12619-7/15018-5/16982-8/16983-5
Princeton University Press
3496 pag. paperback 16 x 24 cm

These are the five volumes in David Roy’s celebrated translation of one of the most famous and important novels in Chinese literature.The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P’ing Mei is an anonymous sixteenth-century work that focuses on the domestic life of Hsi-men Ch’ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. The novel, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of the narrative art form—not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but in a world-historical context.