The Chinese Love Story from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Century

Alister D. Inglis is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Simmons University. He is the author of Hong Mai's Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context (also published by SUNY Press) and the translator of several books, including The Drunken Man's Talk: Tales from Medieval China, compiled by Luo Ye.

"[Inglis] fills an important gap in that previous studies have tended to treat the Tang and later imperial romances separately, but skip this period, which is important not only for its intrinsic interest but also for the debt that later romances owe to the stories from the Tang onward … The book is densely detailed, with rich references to the primary sources, which Professor Inglis has mastered after many years of study." — NAN Nü

"This book represents a major contribution to the field of traditional (or premodern) Chinese narrative. More specifically, it is the first genre-based literary history of the love story from the Tang (618–907) through the Yuan (1279–1368) dynasties. Modern criticism of the love stories dating from these periods is seriously lacking in proper attention and substance, but Inglis demonstrates that they constitute a rich and fascinating literary genre that tell us much about human relations in general, and love relationships in particular." — James M. Hargett, author of Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei