Publication history

Ji Yun published five volumes of supernatural stories from 1789 to 1798: Written to Pass the Season at the Summer Resort (灤陽消夏錄) in 1789, So Have I Heard (如是我聞) in 1791, Jottings from My Haidian Lodging (槐西雜誌) in 1792, No Harm in Listening (姑妄聽之) in 1793, and More from the Summer Resort (灤陽續錄) in 1798. In 1800, his student, Sheng Shiyan, amalgamated the volumes into a single collection,Yuewei caotang biji, named after Ji's studio.

Stories

The stories in the Notes feature many supernatural beings, cryptids and concepts from Chinese folklore, including jiangshi, hulijing and yeren, in addition to ghosts and spirits.

Literary significance

According to Leo Tak-Hung Chan, the Notes is the 'most voluminous zhiguai collection in late imperial China' as well as one of the most misunderstood.

Most of the tales collected by Ji were contributed by his friends and acquaintances, many of whom were distinguished government officials, scholars, and members of gentry. As such, Chan argued that the Notes provides unique insight into how the cultural elite of eighteenth-century China viewed the supernatural, complicating popular notions that the Chinese elite during this period were just 'Confucian rationalists'.

Select translations

English

• Real Life in China at the Height of Empire: Revealed by the Ghosts of Ji Xiaolan (tr. David Pollard). Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2014. .

• Shadows in a Chinese Landscape: The Notes of a Confucian Scholar, (tr. David L. Keenan). M.E. Sharpe, 1999. .

• The Shadow Book of Ji Yun: The Chinese Classic of Weird True Tales, Horror Stories, and Occult Knowledge (tr. Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum). Empress Wu Books, 2021. .