The Book of Swindles - (Translations from the Asian Classics) Annotated by Yingyu Zhang (Hardcover)

About the Book

The Book of Swindles, a seventeenth-century story collection, offers a panoramic guide to the art of deception. Ostensibly a manual for self-protection, it presents a tableau of criminal ingenuity in late Ming China. Each story comes with commentary by the author, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle.

Book Synopsis

This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young women into adultery. Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder. A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring. A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter. A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their "essence" in an attempt to regrow his penis. These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century work, said to be the earliest Chinese collection of swindle stories.

The Book of Swindles, compiled by an obscure writer from southern China, presents a fascinating tableau of criminal ingenuity. The flourishing economy of the late Ming period created overnight fortunes for merchants--and gave rise to a host of smooth operators, charlatans, forgers, and imposters seeking to siphon off some of the new wealth. The Book of Swindles, which was ostensibly written as a manual for self-protection in this shifting and unstable world, also offers an expert guide to the art of deception. Each story comes with commentary by the author, Zhang Yingyu, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle. This volume, which contains annotated translations of just over half of the eighty-odd stories in Zhang's original collection, provides a wealth of detail on social life during the late Ming and offers words of warning for a world in peril.

Review Quotes

Social historians will find the rich panoply of ordinary life. From whatever academic angle one may read Book of Swindles, the reader will find much of interest--and fun!--James Grayson, Professor Emeritus, Sheffield University, UK "Folklore "

The forty-four stories, elegantly translated by Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk, offer a valuable source for specialists of late imperial China, as well as a good read for anyone looking for entertainment. . . . The Book of Swindles has just started to attract scholarly attention in the English-speaking world. I expect it to serve as a significant resource for future studies of late imperial Chinese literature, culture, history, law, and society.--Yinghui Wu "Modern Chinese Literature and Culture "

This makes the translation a pleasure to read--perhaps even more pleasurable than reading the often workman-like
classical prose of the original. The translation also includes an array of helpful reference materials...could easily be incorporated into a range of undergraduate history and literature classes.--Ariel Fox "Journal of Asian Studies "

The Book of Swindles deserves a wide reading: its simple stories reveal with stunning accuracy what makes late imperial China so different from today and yet so familiar as well. It may not be the greatest literary work of its time, but it is a social document that is both entertaining and informative. This slim volume will be of tremendous value for teachers and readers for decades to come.--Robert E. Hegel, Washington University, St. Louis "Ming Studies "

Overall, the collection deserves the highest praise one can give a publication of popular stories: it's a lot of fun. The scams are wide-ranging in type, the plot devices ingenious, and the translation is carried off with great sensitivity both to the original text and to the audience reading it today.--Rob Moore "Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel "

The Book of Swindles is at once an entertaining and readable introduction to late Ming society, a good resource for further research, and a timely reminder of some of the less savoury connections between the past and our own time.--Ewan Macdonald "Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies "

It has been said that the study of China is the study of humanity. In these elegantly translated stories of folly and foibles, we are offered a unique guide to early modern China, as well as insights into the human condition itself.--Geremie R. Barmé, editor of An Educated Man is Not a Pot: On the University

[These] individual stories [provide] useful color to Chinese history classes [and provide] good source material for secondary students to act out.--Peter Gordon "Asian Review of Books "

In The Book of Swindles, Rea and Rusk give us hilarious and sobering proof that swindling isn't just a contemporary concern but has been around for centuries. We are treated to stories of porters cheating officials who cheat porters, of conniving Taoists and gullible officials, of lusty widows who provoke their husbands' death, and of debauched gentry who prey on poor locals. Yet many of these tales sound eerily familiar to today's world, and especially today's China. We are confronted with a widespread, ambient feeling of social mistrust in which people across the land feel that they are constantly being cheated. Besides giving insight into deep societal concerns, The Book of Swindles is a great read.--Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao

What's the oldest scam in the book? Nobody knows, but at least we have the oldest book about scams in China. It's calledThe Book of Swindles, and finally, after four hundred years, Rea and Rusk have presented us with a vivid and entertaining new translation of this classic. Even the chapter titles--'Eating Human Fetuses to Fake Fasting'; 'Swindling the Salt Commissioner While Disguised as Daoists'--are as priceless as anything else produced during the Ming dynasty.--Peter Hessler, author of Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

About the Author

Zhang Yingyu (fl. 1612-1617) lived during the Wanli period (1573-1620) of the Ming dynasty.

Christopher Rea is associate professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China (2015), and the editor of several books, including Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays by Qian Zhongshu (Columbia, 2011).

Bruce Rusk is associate professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Critics and Commentators: The Book of Poems as Classic and Literature (2012).