West Lake Tales
Xihu Jiahua - Sixteen Classic Stories of Immortals, Poets, Lovers, and Heroes of Hangzhou
Step into the misty causeways, lakeside pavilions, and storied hills of Hangzhou in West Lake Tales (Xihu Jiahua), a celebrated collection of classical Chinese vernacular fiction completed in 1673 and attributed to Mo Langzi (the "Man of Ink Wave of Ancient Wu").
Gathered around China's most beloved landscape - West Lake, where every bridge, temple, and tomb carries a legend - these sixteen tales move across the dynasties to retell the lives of immortals, poets, statesmen, courtesans, monks, generals, and spirits. Drawing on history, folklore, and the storyteller's art, the author set out, in his own words, to sift the records and the learned for "the most famous traces and the finest stories," binding them to the real geography of the lake itself.
Among the figures who walk these pages: the alchemist-immortal Ge Hong, said to have attained the Way at Ge Ridge; the poet-governors Bai Juyi and Su Dongpo, whose causeways still cross the water; the recluse Lin Bu of Solitary Hill, "married to the plum, with cranes for sons"; the tragic singing-girl Su Xiaoxiao of Xiling; the martyred loyal general Yue Fei, whose tomb draws mourners still; the monk Yuan Ze and his vow of reincarnation; and the shape-shifting White Snake of Leifeng Pagoda, one of the most enduring love-and-sorcery legends in all of Chinese literature.
Blending biography, romance, the supernatural, Buddhist and Taoist wonder, satire, and quiet moral reflection, West Lake Tales offers modern readers a captivating window into the storytelling world of early Qing China - where scholarly poetry, doomed love, prophecy, loyalty, and the uncanny all gather at the water's edge.
This English translation by Valentin Sarić presents West Lake Tales (Xihu Jiahua) for contemporary readers in clear, literary prose while preserving the spirit and atmosphere of the original narrative.
At a glance
About the series
Rediscover the great epics, mysteries and chronicles of dynastic China: gods and generals, swindlers and scholars, courtesans, ghosts and emperors, in complete English translations.
