Xù Huānxǐ Yuānjiā 續歡喜冤家
Continuation of the Happy Adversaries by 西湖漁隱主人 (撰)
About the work
Xù Huānxǐ Yuānjiā 續歡喜冤家 is a late-Míng vernacular short-story collection, comprising twelve tales (huí 回 13–24) that serve as a direct sequel to KR4k0050 Huānxǐ Yuānjiā 歡喜冤家 (twenty-four stories in the parent collection). It is attributed to the same pen name Xīhú Yúyǐn Zhǔrén 西湖漁隱主人 (“Recluse-Fisherman of West Lake”) that appears on the parent work. The stories are set primarily in Hángzhōu 杭州 and its environs and center on love intrigues, sexual comedy, and moral entanglement among merchants, officials, and courtesans.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The Kanripo text opens directly at chapter 13 with a table of contents listing twelve episodes (chapters 13–24), making clear that this volume is designed as a second installment of the twenty-four-chapter Huānxǐ Yuānjiā. The title page gives the attribution “（明）西湖漁隱主人著,” placing it in the Míng dynasty.
西湖漁隱主人 西湖漁隱主人 is an unidentified Hángzhōu-area author whose identity cannot be established. For a note on this pen name, see the person entry. The work belongs to the genre of late-Míng erotic and romantic fiction centered on the West Lake locale, along with other texts associated with the Hángzhōu literary culture of the Tiānqǐ–Chóngzhēn era (1621–1644).
The stories in the Xù share the thematic concerns of the parent work: male desire, female agency (sometimes transgressive), triangular relationships, and the social consequences of illicit affairs. The Hángzhōu setting — West Lake fāngshēng 放生 pool, the Yǒngjīn Gate 涌金門 landing, and the ferry scene in the opening chapter — lends a local-color specificity characteristic of late-Míng regional fiction.
No preface or postface is preserved in the Kanripo text. The date of composition cannot be independently established; a late-Míng date (1640–1644) is assumed by analogy with the parent work.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- See also: KR4k0050 Huānxǐ Yuānjiā 歡喜冤家 (the parent collection)