Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio, volume 1: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio, volume 1, credited to Songling Pu, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio, volume 1 by Songling Pu. (Translated by Herbert Allen Giles.) Read in English by LibriVox volunteers. "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" (or "Strange Tales of Liaozhai") is a collection of nearly five hundred mostly supernatural tales written by Pu Songling during the early Qing Dynasty. It was written in Classical Chinese rather than Vernacular Chinese. Pu is believed to have completed the majority of the tales sometime in 1679, though he could have added entries as late as 1707. He borrows from a folk tradition of oral storytelling to put to paper a series of captivating, colorful stories, where the boundary between reality and the odd or fantastic is blurred. The cast of characters includes vixen spirits, ghosts, scholars, court officials, Taoist exorcists and beasts. Moral purposes are often inverted between humans and the supposedly degenerate ghosts or spirits, resulting in a satirical edge to some of the stories. Ghosts and spirits are often bold and trustworthy, while humans are on the other hand weak, indecisive and easily manipulated, reflecting the author's own disillusionment with his society. (Summary by Wikipedia) In this project, Librivox volunteers read from Volume 1 of Herbert Giles' English translation of these classic stories.

Recording facts

• Recording title: Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio, volume 1
• Author credits: Songling Pu
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 63
• Listed recording duration: 12:02:48

Catalogue topics

• fiction
• short stories
• supernatural
• Qing dynasty
• chinese literature

Opening tracks: first 24 of 63

1. 00 - Introduction — 29:40
2. 01 - Examination for the Post of Guardian Angel — 6:54
3. 02 - The Talking Pupils — 5:59
4. 03 - The Painted Wall — 6:30
5. 04 - Planting a Pear-tree — 3:38
6. 05 - The Taoist Priest of Lao-shan — 6:56
7. 06 - The Buddhist Priest of Ch'ang-ching — 4:49
8. 07 - The Marriage of the Fox's Daughter — 10:38
9. 08 - Miss Chiao-no — 19:49
10. 09 - Magical Arts — 7:40
11. 10 - Joining the Immortals — 20:04
12. 11 - The Fighting Quails — 16:39
13. 12 - The Painted Skin — 10:49
14. 13 - The Trader's Son — 16:58
15. 14 - Judge Lu — 15:46
16. 15 - Miss Ying-ning; or, the Laughing Girl — 29:29
17. 16 - The Magic Sword — 22:22
18. 17 - The Shui-mang Plant — 12:29
19. 18 - Little Chu — 15:17
20. 19 - Miss Quarta Hu — 8:57
21. 20 - Mr Chu, The Considerate Husband — 3:38
22. 21 - The Magnanimous Girl — 7:13
23. 22 - The Boon-Companion — 4:26
24. 23 - Miss Lien-Hsiang, The Fox-girl — 27:15

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.