Wondrous Verdicts of Upright Judges

The Fujian publisher Yu Xiangdou gathered a hundred short cases tried by clear-sighted magistrates: murder, adultery, theft, fraud, inheritance quarrels and ghosts who come to court to name their killers. Wondrous Verdicts of Upright Judges is arranged by type of crime and gives each complaint, defence and verdict in full, a fascinating look at how Ming readers imagined justice being done. This is a complete new English translation, with names in modern pinyin and the text rendered as plain, readable English prose. Every case is short and self-contained, and together they form one of the roots of the Chinese detective story, long before Judge Dee reached the West. The plotting is brisk, the clues are concrete, and the picture of daily life, from village quarrels to the magistrate's yamen, is as interesting as the crimes themselves.