Jiǔwěi Guī 九尾龜
The Nine-Tailed Turtle
by 張春帆 (撰)
About the work
Jiǔwěi Guī 九尾龜 (The Nine-Tailed Turtle) is a large late-Qīng social novel by 張春帆 Zhāng Chūnfān, organized in multiple parts and running to over 192 huí in the Kanripo text (the complete novel, published across sequential installments in the early Republican period, extends beyond 200 chapters in some editions). The novel is set primarily in the courtesan houses (chāngguǎn 倡館) and pleasure establishments of Shanghai, in the milieu of qīnglóu 青樓 entertainment culture of the late-Qīng treaty-port city. It belongs to the genre of “exposure novels” or “novels of condemnation” (qiǎnzé xiǎoshuō 譴責小說), using the courtesan world as a lens to satirize the corruption, hypocrisy, and moral vacancy of treaty-port society.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The novel centers on the figure of Zhāng Qiūgǔ 章秋谷, a cultivated mínshì 名士 (man of reputation), who circulates through Shanghai’s high-end courtesan houses in the Tángyíng Lǐ 談瀛裏 district. The opening chapters introduce the courtesan Lù Lánfēn 陸蘭芬 and the complex social world of mìngjì 名妓 (famous courtesans), their patrons, pimps, and rivals. The title refers to the mythological nine-tailed turtle (jiǔwěi guī 九尾龜), a symbol of deceptive longevity and illusion — here applied ironically to the illusory pleasures and ultimately destructive consequences of the pleasure-house world.
The Kanripo source text comprises the 第一部 (first part) which reaches 192 chapters in this file, with the final line (“欲知以後事，下回細詳傳”) indicating that even this portion was designed as an installment of a larger work. Published sources indicate the complete Jiǔwěi Guī ran to over 200 chapters serialized across multiple periodical publications and book editions ca. 1906–1910. The table of contents in the source lists 38 chapters (the TOC for Part One), while the text itself continues far beyond.
Jiǔwěi Guī is widely discussed alongside the other major late-Qīng “novels of the demimonde” such as Hán Bāngqìng’s 韓邦慶 Hǎishàng Huā Lièzhuàn 海上花列傳 (1894) and Zǐqīng’s Jiǔwěi Hú 九尾狐. It belongs to what scholars have termed the literature of the Shànghǎi fēnghuā xuěyuè 風花雪月 milieu (literati-courtesan culture) and is notable for its encyclopedic documentation of Shanghai pleasure-house customs, slang, and social hierarchy.
Zhāng Chūnfān’s biography is poorly documented in standard reference sources. He appears to have been active in Shanghai’s periodical press ca. 1906–1912. CBDB contains no entry. The existing person note 張春帆 records his flourit as ca. 1906–1912 based on internal evidence.
Translations and research
- Hanan, Patrick. 1981. “The Technique of Lu Hsün’s Fiction.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 34. (Background on late-Qīng fiction milieu.)
- Zamperini, Paola. 2010. Lost Bodies: Prostitution and Masculinity in Chinese Fiction. Cornell East Asia Series. (Scholarly analysis of courtesan fiction of the late Qīng including Jiǔwěi Guī.)
- Des Forges, Alexander Rowan. 2007. Mediasphere Shanghai: The Aesthetics of Cultural Production. University of Hawai’i Press. (Essential context for Shanghai popular fiction of this period.)
No English translation located.
Links
- Wikipedia — Nine-Tailed Turtle (novel) (if available)
- Wikipedia — Qianze xiaoshuo (genre background)