The Fountainhead of Chinese Erotica

Acknowledgments

vii Acknowledgments It was for a seminar on the Jin Ping Mei taught by David Roy a few years ago that I first wrote about the Ruyijun zhuan, a work that has been a source of entertainment, education, and vexation ever since. I thought I had just enough material to write a paper—not so much that I could scarcely fit it into this book. I hope the reader will conclude that the Ruyijun zhuan deserves the attention. It is adamantly serious, even when brilliantly comical, and fastidiously erudite even when implacably vulgar. It is an unprecedented little work that is clearly unlike the misconceptions of it that have flourished since it was written over four and a half centuries ago. David Roy has lent invaluable assistance from the beginning. Without his guidance, this book and its author might have turned out quite differently . When I first proposed to write about this topic, Anthony Yu also offered valuable advice. His Rereading the Stone and Martin Huang’s Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China, moreover, contributed significantly to my understanding of human desire in the Chinese context. Patrick Hanan offered timely advice at an early stage; editorial assistance and critical comments were provided by Richard Wang, Keith McMahon, Katherine Carlitz, Catherine Swatek, Judith Zeitlin, Laura Wu, James Copeland, and Ellen Widmer. Judge Richard Posner offered criticism of an early outline, and Robert Hegel generously lent me his personal copy of the rare Sui Tang liangchao shizhuan. Dale Hoiberg has over the years procured all manner of out-of-print titles, without which the completion of this work would have been much more difficult. I am particularly grateful to James Cahill for viii Acknowledgments providing, upon extremely short notice, a copy of the painting reproduced on the cover of this book. Although I have benefited from much assistance in the completion of this project, and am particularly grateful for the deft editorial suggestions made by Patricia Crosby and Don Yoder, some infelicities doubtless remain, and for those I must take credit myself. To my wife, Lucy, and five-year-old son, Bertrand, I owe a debt of gratitude that I do not know how to repay. The completion of this book was not easier than I had anticipated; without their continuous support and encouragement , it would have been impossible. But David Roy must get the last word. As everyone who has been one of his students already knows, his own work would have been completed long ago were it not for the attention that he lavishes on everyone else’s. He has recently calculated that if he is able to devote his undivided attention to the completion of his monumental annotated translation of the Jin Ping Mei, he should be able to complete it within the next two decades; this assumes, of course, that he continues to work six days per week, which he undoubtedly will. This daunting task he happily styles his retirement. I eagerly anticipate, as all of his students and colleagues eagerly anticipate, the successful completion of his life’s work. ...