Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch
ORASHKB and author
Vol. 1 (1961)
ISSN 1991-7295
97
three chapters (Ch.12-14) of the Fêng-shên Yen-i and all the other chapters except those parts inherited from the prompt-book Wu-wang Fa-Chou P'ing-hua3 and Lieh-kuo Chih-chuan (@) are the original work of the author.
39
40
38
Lu Hsün told us that the approximate dates of Wu Ch'êng-ên are about 1510-1580, and the earliest editions of the Hsi-yu-chi by Wu Ch'êng-ên we have were all published late in the Wan Li period, probably after 1592. It is therefore safe enough if we suppose that the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i was first compiled in the middle of the Chia Ching period (about 1545).
4
38 "King Wu's Expedition against Chou", the original copy of which is from an edition dated Chih Chih (a), the reign of Emperor Ying Tsung (1321-23) of the Mongol Yüan dynasty. It was published in Chien-an (# now Chien-yang of Fukien province), then a very famous paper-manufacturing and publishing centre. No less than five different prompt-books of the same sort, historical and fictional, including the Wu-wang Fa Chou, have been found, now kept in the Japanese Cabinet Library, bearing the same sub-title as "published by the Yu family of Chien-an" (ZREKƒ). A complete English translation of the last-named is included in my "The Authorship of the Fêng-shên Yen-i”,
39 The Lieh-kuo Chih-chuan FHEN, a book in a very rare edition, copies of which are now preserved only in a few libraries. See my article "The Discovery of the First chuan of the Lieh-kuo Chih-chuan and Its Relation to Wuwang Fa Chou P'ing-hua and the Novel Fêng-shên Yen-i" (元至治本全相武王伐紂話明刊本列國志傳一與封神演義之關係), The New Asia Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, Aug. 1959.
4o Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shih lüich, Ch. 17, p. 168. Yang's translation, p. 210. cf. (2).
41 See Prof. Sun K'ai-ti's (H) Jih-pên Tung-ching So Chien Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shumu (B££££+5), pp. 101-2, Shanghai, 1953. Shih-tê Tang (H) edition, dated "the fourth day of the fifth month in the year jên-chên (IR)",