Excerpt from Chinese Nights Entertainments: Stories of Old China
In the old quaint tea houses by the roadside or the crowded houseboats on their way to the temple, the Chinese, since time immemorial, had the habit, like the people in the time of Chaucer, of telling stories. Some would narrate their own experiences, while others would simply repeat what they had committed to memory since their childhood. These tales were handed down from one generation to another until they became a part and parcel of the nations culture and life.
Fantastic and mysterious, these fables were originally intended for entertainment. As time went on, however, greater significance was attached to them. Leslie Stephen spoke of Horace Walpole's "Castle of Otranto": "Absurd as the burlesque seems, our ancestors found it amusing, and, what is stranger, awe-inspiring." The same might be said of the stories collected in this volume.
Fiction is not necessarily entirely devoid of truth.
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