Hong Gildong Jeon = The Tale of Hong Gildong

«The Tale of Hong Gildong», also known as «The Story of Hong Gildong» — is not just the first novel written in the Korean language, but a great socially poignant work that became the forerunner of modern Korean fiction —... fiction that addresses the people. Through the story of Hong Gildong — a young man born to a concubine and denied the right to call his father «father» — the author exposes the wounds of late Joseon society: class inequality, the corruption of power, the hypocrisy of the feudal family structure. The author of the tale, scholar and thinker Ho Gyun (1569–1618), belonged to the high aristocracy, but fought throughout his life against social inequality and abuses of power. In his work, he openly criticizes injustice and social distortions, not fearing to question the customs of his time. The basis of this edition is one of the surviving versions of the text, the so-called «Gyeongp-han bon». This edition reproduces it fully in Hangul, without the use of Chinese characters, making the text more accessible to the modern reader.