Recommendations for Literary (Classical) Chinese novels (小說) and prose (散文)

[Mark Yong]

Kind of related to a previous thread that I started several years ago (http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/7612-resources-for-literary-chinese-wenyan/), but more specific:

 

Does anyone have good recommendations for Literary (Classical) Chinese novels (小說) and prose (散文)? What would your top 5-10 recommendations be:

 

I am aware that most would start off by recommending the Four Great Novels, i.e. 水滸傳, 三國演義, 西游記 and 紅樓夢. However, I should point out that what I am specifically after are novels and prose written purely in Literary Chinese 文言文, not Vernacular Chinese (白話文) or a hybrid between the two. And among the Four Novels, 三國演義 comes closest, but not 西游記 and 紅樓夢, which are written more in the vernacular style. Having said that, I am aware that over the passage of time, and especially into the 明清 eras, 文言文 has evolved to a point where there would inevitably be traces of the vernacular within what is essentially a Literary Chinese framework.

 

In the afore-mentioned thread, a poster recommended 蘇曼殊's works (particularly 《斷鴻零雁記》). A couple of searches have yielded other titles such as 《聊齋誌異》 and 浮生六記 (I am one-third of the way through the latter). Just wondering if there are many more that I may have missed out which are worth looking at.

[Kenny同志]

Try 林琴南's translated works.

 

《林纾译著经典1-4(珍藏版)(套装共4册)》内容简介：第一册选《巴黎茶花女遗事》、《吟边燕语》，《现身说法》，《拊掌录》；第二册选《迦茵小传》、《离恨天》、《不如归》；第三册选《黑奴吁天录》与《撒克逊劫后英雄略》；第四册为《块肉余生述》。

 

[Luxi]

Isn't 蒲松齡 (Pu Songlin's)  聊齋誌異 "Tales from a Chinese Studio" the best known? It is supposed to be in pure wenyan, as opposed to the 4 great novels, all of which are in the vernacular. I haven't yet tried reading it in the original, but it seems ideal for practice since it's a  big collection of short stories and there is a complete recent-ish English translation - details of which I can't remember but should be easy to find, it's not Wade-Giles! You have to like ghost stories and raunchy fox spirit ladies.

 

If you like history, there are lots of good stories in the 史記 (Records of the Historian), also in 司馬光 (Sima Guang's) 資治通鑑 ("Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance") - a massive history work covering events from the Zhou to the Tang Dynasty.

[Luxi]

An addition, after seeing that the original thread from 2006 (almost a classic in itself) had some talk about bookshops. I'm sure you already know the Chinese Text Project, but it's always worth mentioning for people like me who don't live anywhere near a Chinese bookshop.

 

It includes thousand of works from pre-Han to the Republic. 

 

There is a sort if equivalent PRC site with original texts, but I can't find my references right now

[OneEye]

A while back (4 years ago! I can't believe it!) we read a short story from 《子不語》 in the reading group in Taiwan/Grand 文言文 Reading Project. It was fun, and I've been wanting to read more from that collection but haven't found the time yet.

[古文奇才]

You could check out Tang Dynasty Tales 唐傳奇.