Abstract
AbstractThis article interrogates the early reception history of the late Qing Chinese novel The Travels of Lao Can authored by Liu E (1857–1909). It argues that for decades this novel was widely read as a book of prophecy that revealed the future of China based on traditional Chinese occult wisdom. It was this alleged mystique, instead of its literary merits, that accounted for the high popularity of the text in the late Qing and Republican book market. This argument is predicated upon the discovery and reappraisal of a 1916 “fake edition” of the book until now unremarked in Chinese literary historiography. Investigating this forgery reveals that it was arguably the most widely circulated edition of The Travels of Lao Can in the Republican period. Bound with a newly fabricated sequel that explicitly manifested its “divinatory efficacy”, this edition greatly shaped the popular reception of the text as a book of prophecy. Revisiting this “fake edition” and the forgotten stories behind it not only enables the rereading of The Travels of Lao Can in its full complexity, but also points to deeper questions about the relationship between print culture, literary consumption, and the production of occult knowledge in China's modern transition.
Highlights
Hu Shih’s fury This article studies the late Qing Chinese novel The Travels of Lao Can (Lao Can youji 老殘遊記, hereafter The Travels) authored by Liu E 劉鶚 (1857–1909) as a book of prophecy
This article interrogates the early reception history of the late Qing Chinese novel The Travels of Lao Can authored by Liu E (1857–1909)
It was this alleged mystique, instead of its literary merits, that accounted for the high popularity of the text in the late Qing and Republican book market
Summary
Hu Shih’s fury This article studies the late Qing Chinese novel The Travels of Lao Can (Lao Can youji 老殘遊記, hereafter The Travels) authored by Liu E 劉鶚 (1857–1909) as a book of prophecy. I responded that this would not happen, but I could share with them the brief life history of my late father After a while this manager visited me for the third time, asking to borrow the original Tianjin Daily News edition of the first twenty chapters for the purpose of text emendation. As a matter of fact, these seventeen pieces of chapter commentaries were penned by Liu E himself They were included in the original Tianjin Daily News serialisation but were omitted in most of the later book editions because people did not know they were Liu E’s writing.[13] This proves that the Baixin Company people had rigorously studied the original edition that they borrowed from Liu Dashen. We will read the actual contents of the Baixin edition soon, but before that, we need to review where the “prophecy” was from and what exactly it foretold
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