Zhēnzhū Bó 珍珠舶
The Pearl Vessel attributed to 鸳湖烟水散人 (著, “composed by”)
About the work
Zhēnzhū Bó 珍珠舶 (full title: Xīnjuān Xiùxiàng Zhēnzhū Bó 新鐫繡像珍珠舶, “Newly Carved, Illustrated Pearl Vessel”) is an early Qīng collection of vernacular short fiction (báihuà duǎnpiān xiǎoshuō 白話短篇小說, nǐ huàběn 擬話本), organized in six volumes each containing three chapters (huí 回), for a total of eighteen chapters. The catalog meta attributes the work to 佚名 (“anonymous”), and the Kanripo source title page reads “（清）佚名 著.” However, the work is in fact attributed on its original title page to the pen name Yuānhú Yānshuǐ Sǎnrén 鸳湖烟水散人 (“The Water-Mist Wanderer of Yuānyāng Lake”), with an interlinear commentary by Dōnglǐ Huàn’ān Jūshì 東里幻庵居士; the true identity of Yuānhú Yānshuǐ Sǎnrén has been tentatively identified by some scholars with Xú Zhèn 徐震 (a Qīng writer active in the Jiāngnán region), but this attribution is not conclusively established. The Kanripo catalog entry uses 佚名 reflecting the anonymous appearance of the text as received, and the frontmatter person field follows that entry; the fuller attribution is recorded here in the abstract.
Prefaces
No tiyao found in source. The source file opens with a table of contents listing all eighteen chapters, followed immediately by the first chapter. No separate prefatory essay is present in the Kanripo witness.
Abstract
The eighteen chapters of Zhēnzhū Bó are organized as six self-contained tales across six volumes (三回一事, three chapters per story). The stories are set in the Jiāngnán region (Sōngjiāng prefecture and surrounding areas) and draw predominantly on “social fiction” (shìqíng xiǎoshuō 世情小說) themes: the peril of false friendship and mercenary betrayal (framing tale of Zhào Xiāng 趙相 and Jiǎng Fógē 蔣佛哥, hui 1–3); the consequences of a ruined woman’s moral debt (hui 3 colophon); the rewards of scholarly perseverance and feminine sympathy (hui 4–6); supernatural encounters and spirit marriages (hui 7–9); maritime and river travel encounters (hui 9–10); literati romance and celestial encounters (hui 11–13); the rewards of chastity and filial devotion (hui 14–18). The prologue poem to chapter 1 meditates on the difficulty and rarity of true friendship, citing the classical friendship of Guǎn Zhòng 管仲 and Bào Shūyá 鮑叔牙 as a model no longer achievable. The title Zhēnzhū Bó (“Pearl Vessel”) uses the image of an ocean-going vessel (bó 舶) carrying pearls as a metaphor for the collection’s moral freight: stories worth preserving and transmitting.
The text survives solely in a Japanese manuscript copy (rìběn chāoběn 日本抄本) held in the Dàlián Library (大連圖書館). It has been reprinted in modern critical editions: Shànghǎi Gǔjí Chūbǎn Shè 上海古籍出版社 (in the Gǔběn Xiǎoshuō Jíchéng 古本小說集成 series), Jiāngsū Gǔjí Chūbǎn Shè 江蘇古籍出版社 (in Zhōngguó Huàběn Dàxì 中國話本大系, 1993), and Huángshān Shūshè 黃山書社 (in Zhōngguó Lìdài Jìnshū Xuǎn Cóng 中國歷代禁書選叢, 1994).
The dating of composition is uncertain; the early Qīng period (ca. 1644–1700) is the scholarly consensus. No examination records or biographical data are known for Yuānhú Yānshuǐ Sǎnrén. The identification with Xú Zhèn 徐震 — who is also proposed as the author of Yún Xiān Xiào 雲仙笑 (KR4k0285) and other early Qīng fiction — remains debated.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature specifically devoted to 珍珠舶 located in Western-language scholarship.
- The Chinese critical editions (Shànghǎi Gǔjí 1993; Jiāngsū Gǔjí 1993; Huángshān 1994) provide the standard modern text.
- Hanan, Patrick. 1981. The Chinese Vernacular Story. Harvard University Press. (General genre context for early Qīng nǐ huàběn.)