Frontmatter

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. Contents VII
3. Preface IX
4. Divisions of Chinese History by Dynastic Rule XVII
5. Conversion Table of Wade-Giles and Pinyin Systems for Romanizing Chinese XIX
6. 1. The World Behind the Novel: China in the Seventeenth Century 1
7. 2. The Novelists’ World: Tradition and Innovation 33
8. 3. Political Realities in Fictional Garb: Past as Metaphor for the Present 67
9. 4. Man as Responsible Being: The Individual, Social Role, and Heaven 105
10. 5. Self as Mind or as Body: Fictional Examinations of Identity 141
11. 6. Disaster and Renewal in an Ordered Universe 189
12. 7. Literary Innovation and the Legacy of Seventeenth-Century Novels 219
13. Appendix I. Literary Source Materials for Several Seventeenth-Century Novels 235
14. Appendix II. Textual Histories of Various Seventeenth-Century Novels 241
15. Glossary 255
16. Notes 263
17. Bibliography 309
18. Index 331