Yáo Tóngshòu 姚桐壽 (zì Lènián 樂年, self-styled Tóngjiāng diàosǒu 桐江釣叟 “Old Angler of the Tóng River”), a native of Mùzhōu 睦州 (Tónglú 桐廬, modern Zhèjiāng). His exact birth and death years are not recorded; CBDB (id 35149, dynasty Yuán, source Yuánrén chuánjì zīliào suǒyǐn 元人傳記資料索引 vol. 2 pp. 737–8) gives only fl. 1339. The internal evidence of his Lèjiāo sīyǔ 樂郊私語 places him in office as Yúgàn 餘干 professor (jiàoshòu) in Hòuzhìyuán 5 jǐmǎo 後至元己卯 (1339), in mourning for his Hǎiyán in-law Shěn Zhòngshí 沈仲實 in Zhìzhèng 9 jǐchǒu 至正己丑 (1349), moving his household to Hǎiyán 海鹽 in Zhìzhèng 12 rénchén 壬辰 (1352) to escape the late-Yuán warfare, already styling himself qián jiàoshòu Yúgàn (former Yúgàn professor) by Zhìzhèng 14 jiǎwǔ 甲午 (1354), and dating the preface to Lèjiāo sīyǔ in Zhìzhèng 23 guǐmǎo 癸卯 spring (1363) — by which time he must have been at least in his fifties. After 1363 he disappears from record; whether he survived the YuánMíng transition of 1368 is unknown.
He had an elder brother, Yáo Chūnshòu 姚椿壽, for whom 楊維楨 Yáng Wéizhēn (1296–1370) wrote a tomb inscription that was originally appended to Lèjiāo sīyǔ but was excised by the Sìkù compilers as “pō wèi bù lún” (頗為不倫, “rather inappropriate”). In Hǎiyán Yáo was a close friend of 楊維楨, of the Jiāhé poet 貝瓊 Bèi Tíngchén 貝廷臣 (Bèi Qióng 貝瓊, 1314–1379), of Pān Zémín 潘澤民, Zhāng Zǐhuì 張子晦, and of his fellow-resident Yáng Yǒuzhí 楊友直 (a great-grandson of the SòngYuán Hǎiyán Yángshì lineage). His personal acquaintance with 劉基 Liú Jī, with 趙孟頫 Zhào Mèngfǔ’s elder cousin Zhào Zǐgù 趙子固 (Zhào Mèngjiān), and his eye-witness reports of the late-Yuán Zhāng Shìchéng campaigns give his single surviving work — Lèjiāo sīyǔ KR3l0083 — exceptional documentary value for late-Yuán Zhèjiāng cultural and political history, and for the early history of the Hǎiyán qiāng 海鹽腔 southern-drama style.