Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang (Translations from the Asian Classics)

The translation is absolutely incredible and impeccable. The only way I can describe it is that it reminds me of English translations of the Bible. It really evokes a sense of the ancients and the dignified nature of the text. Few translations reach this level.That being said, it is a somewhat dense and serious book to get through. As a modern reader I often felt I was unable to naturally pick up on some of the morals of the stories. The book is certainly a valuable read but I felt I had to get into the right mood to really get into it.

This is a fantastic job. The translation is very readable (I don't have the original by me to check for accuracy but it seems extremely good). The introduction is a really superior job of putting the book in context. This is a must-read for anyone interested in China or in the status of women in early societies. The stories often reflect incredible courage in the face of a society not only very sexist by modern standards, but pretty blood-drenched by any standards, including its own. The book causes me to speculate at great length, but, being a nonexpert in this field, I will spare the reader and confine myself to recommending the book.

For more than 2,000 years the Lienü zhuan (“Categorized Biographies of Women”) played a central role in the education of young women, teaching them the norms of behavior that Confucian society demanded of them. They learned to be modest and self-effacing, yielding gracefully to their fathers, brothers, and husbands and avoiding anything that would bring discredit to their families. They learned that death was preferable to dishonor, and that suicide was an honorable way out of situations that offered only bad moral choices. Young women, generation after generation, learned to emulate the conspicuous virtues of the exemplary women depicted in these pages, and to shrink in horror from (though perhaps they were secretly fascinated by) the counter-examples of “bad” women, like the sexually voracious serial widow Lady Xia Ji. Anne Kinney’s graceful and faithful translation of this important text is both instructive and entertaining; these biographies make wonderful stories. Her extensive introduction places the work in context; her voluminous notes enhance the biographies but do not get in their way. This is an indispensible guide to the position of women in imperial China, and a fascinating read.