Pu Songling
1640–1715
Biography
Pu Songling (1640–1715) was a writer from Zichuan, in Shandong province in north-east China, who lived under the Qing dynasty. He hoped to build an official career through the civil service examinations, but he passed only the first stage and never got beyond it, so he earned much of his living as a tutor in other families' households. Chinese readers often call him Master Liaozhai, after the book that made him famous.
His fame rests on Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊齋誌異, Liaozhai zhiyi), a collection of short tales about ghosts, foxes and other spirits. Chinese encyclopaedias count 491 pieces in the collection. He wrote them over about four decades, from the late seventeenth century into the early eighteenth, and they circulated among his friends in hand-copied manuscripts. The book was not printed until 1766, more than fifty years after his death. Many of the tales draw on folk belief, and critics often read them as sharp comment on corruption and on the failings of officials. Some of its best-known characters, such as the ghost Nie Xiaoqian and the fox spirit Yingning, are familiar to readers across China and in later films and television.
On this site his best-known book is 聊齋誌異, which many readers know in English as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The catalogue credits it to him under the name above, and the simplified form 蒲松龄 also appears on books. Chinese biographies note that writing the tales satisfied his taste for the strange but also gave him a way to express his own views.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
聊齋誌異
by 蒲松齡
Pu Songling's strange tales of fox spirits, ghosts, scholars and lovers, told in a limpid literary style and sprinkled with sharp comment on corrupt officials. Beautiful fox women and honest men who fall in love with them are the collection's favourite figures. This book uses…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.