Lǜ Yě Xiān Zōng 綠野仙蹤
Immortal Traces in the Green Wilds by 李百川 (著, “composed by”)
About the work
Lǜ Yě Xiān Zōng 綠野仙蹤 is a long Qīng-dynasty zhānghúi 章回 novel in one hundred chapters (huí 回), composed by Lǐ Bǎichuān 李百川 over approximately nine years (ca. 1753–1762) during the Qiánlóng 乾隆 reign period. It is one of the most ambitious prose fictions of the eighteenth century, fusing three distinct novelistic modes: the supernatural-marvel narrative (shénmó xiǎoshuō 神魔小說) in the tradition of Xīyóu Jì 西遊記, the social novel (shìqíng xiǎoshuō 世情小說) in the tradition of Hóng Lóu Mèng 紅樓夢, and the historical fiction (lìshǐ xiǎoshuō 歷史小說). The Kanripo text witnesses the full hundred-chapter recension.
Prefaces
No tiyao found in source. The source file opens with a brief poetic preamble (詞曰 “Dié Liàn Huā” 蝶戀花) and proceeds directly into the first chapter. A preface by Táo Jiāhè 陶家鶴, preserved in some editions, is not present in this witness.
Abstract
The protagonist Lěng Yú Bīng 冷於冰 (“Cold-as-Ice”) is an educated man of the Míng Jiājìng 嘉靖 reign period (1522–1566) from Guǎngpíng 廣平 prefecture, Zhílì. Disillusioned by the corrupt rule of the grand secretary Yán Sōng 嚴嵩 and grieving the death of his teacher, he renounces official life and embarks on a Daoist path of self-cultivation, receiving esoteric instruction from the fire-dragon immortal Huǒ Lóng Shì 火龍氏 and wielding the “thunder pearl” (léi zhū 雷珠). The novel interweaves his spiritual progress with martial-arts adventures, the suppression of bandits, the elimination of demons and heterodox practitioners, and a rich cast of sub-plots involving secondary characters. The novel’s Daoist framework distinguishes it sharply from other cáizǐ jiārén and purely martial-arts fiction; Zhèng Zhènduó 鄭振鐸 placed it alongside Hóng Lóu Mèng and Rúlín Wàishǐ 儒林外史 as one of the three great novels of the mid-Qīng period.
Lǐ Bǎichuān’s biography is largely unknown. He is recorded as a Qiánlóng-period writer who spent nine years composing the novel, apparently drawing on personal experience of hardship and political disappointment. No examination records or official career are documented for him.
The text circulated primarily in manuscript; two manuscript traditions survive: an eighty-chapter recension and the complete hundred-chapter recension. Because of passages deemed sexually explicit, the novel was banned as “obscene literature” (yínshu 淫書) by the Jiāngsū governor Dīng Rìchāng 丁日昌 in the seventh year of the Tóngzhì reign (1868). This inhibited its early print publication but did not prevent manuscript circulation. Modern critical editions appeared in the twentieth century.
Translations and research
- Hanan, Patrick. 1981. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Harvard University Press. (General context for Qīng fiction.)
- Li, Wai-yee. 1993. Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature. Princeton University Press.
- Plaks, Andrew H. 1987. The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel. Princeton University Press. (Background on the novelistic tradition from which Lǜ Yě Xiān Zōng departs.)
- Zhōu Cìjí 周次吉. 1985. Lǜ Yě Xiān Zōng Yánjiū 綠野仙蹤研究. Wénlǜ Chūbǎn Shè, Taipei. (Principal Chinese monograph study.)
No English translation located.