A review by saralynnburnett
Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling

5.0

These stories were excellent! Ghosts, fox spirits, adulterous spouses, zombies - who knew 17th/18th century China was so rich with imagination? You can detect the turmoil of the dynastic shift from Ming to Manchu in these and perhaps thats where a lot of these tales stem from, the uncertainty of their situation. Many of these stories were just a few paragraphs long, and others went on for pages and each was accompanied by a classically drawn picture which will help many western readers put some of the items mentioned into context (ancestor tablets, Chinese architecture etc). The notes and glossary in the back of the book were as interesting as the stories themselves and provided a scholarly look into Chinese customs and beliefs.