Yún Xiān Xiào 雲仙笑
Laughter of Cloud Immortals compiled by 天花主人 (編, “compiled by”)
About the work
Yún Xiān Xiào 雲仙笑 (also known as Yún Xiān Xiào 雲仙嘯 in some bibliographic listings) is an early Qīng collection of five vernacular short stories (bái huà duǎnpiān 白話短篇), attributed to the pen name Tiānhuā Zhǔrén 天花主人 (編, “compiled by”). The source file records: “（清）天花主人 編.” Each tale is presented as a self-contained moral narrative, not organized by huí 回 but by individual story title. The five tales are: (1) Zhuō Shūshēng 拙書生 (“The Untalented Scholar”), subtitled 拙書生禮鬥登高第 (“The Untalented Scholar Wins High Honors by Polite Contest”); (2) Yòu Tuányuán 又團圓 (“Reunion Again”), subtitled 裴節女完節全夫 (“The Chaste Woman Pèi Preserves Her Integrity and Saves Her Husband”); (3) Píng Zǐfāng 平子芳 (“Píng Zǐfāng”), with episodes about a woman who cross-dresses as a man; (4) Shèng Qiānjīn 勝千金 (“Worth More Than a Thousand Gold Pieces”), subtitled 一碗飯報德勝千金 (“A Bowl of Rice in Return for Kindness, Worth More Than a Thousand Gold Pieces”); (5) Hòudé Bào 厚德報 (“Repaying Virtue”), subtitled 張昌伯厚德免奇冤 (“Zhāng Chāngbó’s Generous Virtue Averts Extraordinary Injustice”).
Prefaces
No tiyao found in source. The source file opens directly with the table of contents and the first tale without a formal preface.
Abstract
The five tales of Yún Xiān Xiào share the didactic emphases typical of late Míng and early Qīng huábèn 話本 fiction: the perils and rewards of literary talent, female chastity and resourcefulness, the repayment of kindness, and the rectification of injustice through extraordinary means. The stories are set in the Míng dynasty (references to Jǐngtài 景泰 reign in tale 1). The moral commentary in tale 1 — on the dangers of arrogant talent and the virtue of apparent “dullness” (zhuō 拙) as a protective strategy — is elaborated at length in the preface to the first story and constitutes the thematic overture of the collection.
The pen name Tiānhuā Zhǔrén 天花主人 (“Master of the Heavenly Flowers”) is distinct from the closely related Tiānhuā Cáng Zhǔrén 天花藏主人 (天花藏主人), the latter associated with a cluster of cáizǐ jiārén novels including Yùjiāolí 玉嬌梨 and Yù Zhī Jī 玉支璣 (KR4k0281). The question of whether these pen names represent the same author has been debated; some scholars have suggested identifications with Xú Zhèn 徐震 or Zhāng Yún 張匀, but none has been conclusively proven. The rare Dàlián Municipal Library copy (寫刻本, early Qīng woodblock print) is the sole surviving witness; modern reprints have been issued by Chūnfēng Wényì Chūbǎn Shè 春風文藝出版社.
The dating of composition is uncertain. The internal setting (Míng dynasty) and the stylistic affinity with the Tiānhuā Cáng cluster of texts suggest a composition date in the late seventeenth century (ca. 1644–1700); the range follows the consensus for early Qīng popular fiction of this type.
Translations and research
- Hanan, Patrick. 1981. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Harvard University Press. (Genre context.)
No substantial secondary literature specifically devoted to 雲仙笑 located.