Fox Charms

For three centuries now, in any Chinese bookstore, one can find a collection of stories by Pu Songling, where readers are greeted with astonishing tales: about fox sorcerers, wizards and ghosts, strange animals, cursed mirrors, talking birds, living paintings, and much, much more. In fact, Pu Songling's books have long crossed the borders of China and are now read worldwide in all major languages. The author was a scholar of Confucian upbringing, and, strictly speaking, it was not befitting for him to write stories about all sorts of wonders and with erotic motifs. However, Pu Songling became famous precisely for such books, becoming the most well-known Chinese writer of his time. The soil for his creativity was made from folk tales, but over time the author's stories themselves transformed into folklore and were passed from mouth to mouth by simple storytellers. This current edition publishes Pu Songling's stories about fox fairies and monk wizards, who «appear to people in order to, by mixing reality with mirage, sharply and distinctly separate the worthy person from the villains.» The texts are accompanied by detailed notes by the philologist sinologist Vasily Mikhailovich Alexeev.