The Margins of Utopia

Know about the book -

The Margins of Utopia is written by Ellen Widmer and published by BRILL. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 1684172667 (ISBN 10) and 9781684172665 (ISBN 13).

Twenty eight years after the collapse of the Ming dynasty, Ming loyalism was still a strong political and intellectual resistance to the new Manch order. Consists of eight chapters, two appendices, notes, bibliography, glossary, and index. Shui-hu hou-chuan,first published in 1664, is the work of Ch'en Ch'en, a man loyal to the Ming, who used this novel as a way of giving covert expression to the frustrations of those times. In The Margins of Utopia,,Ellen Widmer draws on contemporary sources, including Ch'en's own poetry, to connect Shui-hu hou-chuan with the historical context from which it emerged. At the same time, she discusses the place of the novel in the history of Chinese fiction and shows how familiar conventions are put to new uses in Ch'en's hands.