A history of Chinese letters and epistolary culture / / edited by Antje Richter.

• Superior document: Handbook of Oriental studies Handbuch der Orientalistik. Section Four, China, Volume 31
• TeilnehmendeR: Richter, Antje,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, The Netherlands : : Koninklijke Brill,, 2015.; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Handbuch der Orientalistik. China ; Volume 31.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (998 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture is the first publication, in any language, that is dedicated to the study of Chinese epistolary literature and culture in its entirety, from the early empire to the twentieth century. The volume includes twenty-five essays dedicated to a broad spectrum of topics from postal transmission to letter calligraphy, epistolary networks to genre questions. It introduces dozens of letters, often the first translations into English, and thus makes epistolary history palpable in all its vitality and diversity: letters written by men and women from all walks of life to friends and lovers, princes and kings, scholars and monks, seniors and juniors, family members and neighbors, potential patrons, newspaper editors, and many more. With contributions by: Pablo Ariel Blitstein, R. Joe Cutter, Alexei Ditter, Ronald Egan, Imre Galambos, Natascha Gentz, Enno Giele, Natasha Heller, David R. Knechtges, Paul W. Kroll, Jie Li, Y. Edmund Lien, Bonnie S. McDougall, Amy McNair, David Pattinson, Zeb Raft, Antje Richter, Anna M. Shields, Suyoung Son, Janet Theiss, Xiaofei Tian, Lik Hang Tsui, Matthew Wells, Ellen Widmer, and Suzanne E. Wright.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: The Study of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture / Antje Richter -- 1 Reconstructing the Postal Relay System of the Han Period / Y. Edmund Lien -- 2 Letters as Calligraphy Exemplars: The Long and Eventful Life of Yan Zhenqing’s (709–785) Imperial Commissioner Liu Letter / Amy McNair -- 3 Chinese Decorated Letter Papers / Suzanne E. Wright -- 4 Material and Symbolic Economies: Letters and Gifts in Early Medieval China / Xiaofei Tian -- 5 Letters in the Wen xuan / David R. Knechtges -- 6 Between Letter and Testament: Letters of Familial Admonition in Han and Six Dynasties China / Antje Richter -- 7 The Space of Separation: The Early Medieval Tradition of Four-Syllable “Presentation and Response” Poetry / Zeb Raft -- 8 Letters and Memorials in the Early Third Century: The Case of Cao Zhi / Robert Joe Cutter -- 9 Liu Xie’s Institutional Mind: Letters, Administrative Documents, and Political Imagination in Fifth- and Sixth-Century China / Pablo Ariel Blitstein -- 10 Bureaucratic Influences on Letters in Middle Period China: Observations from Manuscript Letters and Literati Discourse / Lik Hang Tsui -- 11 Private Letter Manuscripts from Early Imperial China / Enno Giele -- 12 Su Shi’s Informal Letters in Literature and Life / Ronald Egan -- 13 The Letter as Artifact of Sentiment and Legal Evidence / Janet Theiss -- 14 Infinite Variations of Writing and Desire: Love Letters in China and Europe / Bonnie S. McDougall -- 15 Writing from Revolution’s Debris: Shen Congwen’s Family Letters in the Mao Era / Jie Li -- 16 Captured in Words: Functions and Limits of Autobiographical Expression in Early Chinese Epistolary Literature / Matthew Wells -- 17 Civil Examinations and Cover Letters in the Mid-Tang: Dugu Yu’s (776–815) “Letter Submitted to Attendant Gentleman Quan of the Ministry of Rites” / Alexei Ditter -- 18 The Inscription of Emotion in Mid-Tang Collegial Letters / Anna M. Shields -- 19 Halves and Holes: Collections, Networks, and Epistolary Practices of Chan Monks / Natasha Heller -- 20 Letters as Windows on Ming-Qing Women’s Literary Culture / Ellen Widmer -- 21 Epistolary Networks and Practice in the Early Qing: The Letters Written to Yan Guangmin / David Pattinson -- 22 Aid and Comfort: Lu Zhaolin’s Letters / Paul W. Kroll -- 23 She Association Circulars from Dunhuang / Imre Galambos -- 24 Between Writing and Publishing Letters: Publishing a Letter about Book Proprietorship / Suyoung Son -- 25 Opinions Going Public: Letters to the Editors in China’s Earliest Modern Newspapers / Natascha Gentz -- Scholarship on Chinese Epistolary Literature and Culture: A Select Bibliography -- Index.