Jiang hu cong tan, di yi ji 江湖叢談第一集 [Serialized Discussions from the Margins of Society, First Installment]

158 pages. Small 8vo, orig. semi-stiff wrappers (slightly dampstained). Beijing: Beiping shi yan bao she 北平時報社, 1937.




An uncommon work on the life of entertainers in northern China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "The author narrates, in the first person, things he has seen and heard, recording the guild regulations and modes of operation of northern entertainers in the late Qing period and early Republic, the development and transformation of old-style entertainment areas in the big cities of the north, and certain anti-social shady behaviors and methods current in this margin of society. The contents encompass innumerable phenomena and are very rich" (Zheng Xuelai 郑雪来, ed., Ershi shiji Zhongguo xueshu da cidian: yishu xue 20 世纪中国学术大典 艺术学 [2009], p. 717).


Yun Youke, "the visitor among the clouds," was a pseudonym for Lian Kuoru 連闊如 (1902-71), a Manchu of the Bordered Yellow Banner. He was a professional storyteller, performing on the radio in the late 1930s, with a continued career under the People's Republic, but suffered during the Anti-Rightist Campaign (Guan Jixin 关纪新, Manzu xiandai wenxue jia yishu jia zhuanlüe 满族现代文学家艺术家传略 [1987], pp. 108-10).


An earlier reader has inserted a few notecards with Chinese phrases translated into French.


Very good copy. A total of three installments were published in the series.