Shih-shuo Hsin-yu: A New Account of Tales of the World.

• Author: Cutter, Robert Joe
• Position: Brief Reviews - Book Review

Shih-shuo Hsin-yu: A New Account of Tales of the World. Translated by RICHARD B. MATHER. 2nd edition, revised. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies, no. 95. Ann Arbor: CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 2002. Pp. xxxviii + 735. $60.

When Richard B. Mather's translation of Shishuo xinyu first appeared over twenty-five years ago, it was seen as a major achievement, the fruit of two decades of labor by one of the leading scholars of early medieval Chinese literature and religion. That is not to say that Mather's book was perfect in every respect. Whose is? Over the intervening years a number of reviews and other publications, some quite substantial, have appeared advancing corrections and emendations to Mather. Now he has taken advantage of these materials, which he lists in a "Foreword to the Second Edition," to produce this revised edition.

The revisions are various, including such matters as corrections in the pronunciations of words and changes in the translations of the titles of some of the divisions of the text. One can always quibble with translations, and there are places where one wants to do so in Mather still. Furthermore, the second edition...